[Python-ideas] This seems like a wart to me...

[Ron Adam]

Bruce Leban wrote:
> I think string.split(list) probably won't do what people expect either. 
> Here's what I would expect it to do:
> 
>  >>> '1 (123) 456-7890'.split([' ', '(', ')', '-'])
> ['1', '', '123', '', '456', '7890']
> 
> but what you probably want is:
> 
>  >>>re.split(r'[ ()-]*', '1 (123) 456-7890')
> ['1', '123', '456', '7890']
> 
> using allows you to do that and avoids ambiguity about what it does.
> 
> --- Bruce

Without getting into regular expressions, it's easier to just allow 
adjacent char matches to act as one match so the following is true.

     longstring.splitchars(string.whitespace)  =  longstring.split()