[Python-ideas] Deprecating rarely used str methods

[MRAB]

On 08/08/2013 19:32, Serhiy Storchaka wrote:
> The str class have some very rarely used methods. When was the last time
> you used swapcase() (not counting the time of apprenticeship)? These
> methods take place in a source code, documentation and a memory of
> developers. Due to the large number of methods, some of the really
> necessary methods can be neglected. I propose to deprecate rarely used
> methods (especially that for most of them there is another, more obvious
> way) and remove them in 4.0.
>
> s.ljust(width) == '{:<{}}'.format(s, width) == '%-*s' % (width, s)
> s.ljust(width, fillchar) == '{:{}<{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)
> s.rjust(width) == '{:>{}}'.format(s, width) == '%*s' % (width, s)
> s.rjust(width, fillchar) == '{:{}>{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)
> s.center(width) == '{:^{}}'.format(s, width)
> s.center(width, fillchar) == '{:{}^{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)
>
You could apply the same kind of reasoning that's used with regex: why
use .format when .ljust, etc, is shorter and faster?

> str(n).zfill(width) == '{:0={}}'.format(n, width) == '%0*.f' % (width,n)
>
> str.swapcase() is just not needed.
>
I've never used .swapcase, and I doubt I ever will.

> str.expandtabs([tabsize]) is rarely used and can be moved to the
> textwrap module.
>
I use it to ensure that indentation is always 4 spaces and never tabs
in the regex release in case I've missed a setting in an editor
somewhere, so it _is_ an important method! :-)