[Python-ideas] str.split with empty separator

[Alexandre Conrad]

Hello all,

What if str.split could take an empty separator?

>>> 'banana'.split('')
['b', 'a', 'n', 'a', 'n', 'a']

I know this can be done with:

>>> list('banana')
['b', 'a', 'n', 'a', 'n', 'a']

I think that, semantically speaking, it would make sens to split where
there are no characters (in between them). Right now you can join from
an empty string:

''.join(['b', 'a', 'n', 'a', 'n', 'a'])

So why can't we split from an empty string?

This wouldn't introduce any backwards incompatible changes as
str.split currently can't have an empty separator:

>>> 'banana'.split('')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: empty separator

I would love to see my banana actually split. :)

Regards,
-- 
Alex
twitter.com/alexconrad