Gotcha in replace

[Tom Jenkins]

Hello all,
While I was working on some database scripting, I got bit by this 
behavior in replace.

 >>> y = "insert into blah values ('hello','','','','bye')"
 >>> y.replace(",'',", ",' ',")
"insert into blah values ('hello',' ','',' ','bye')"
 >>>

Notice that the second matching set of ",''," characters are not 
replaced probably because the first and second matching sets overlap on 
the last and first character, respectively.

It was trivial for this script to work around the gotcha (I just put the 
replace in a loop and broke out when new string equalled the old 
string).  But that method may not be an appropriate workaround in all cases.

Is this known behavior and I just missed it; or is this a bug in replace?

-- 
Tom Jenkins
devIS - Development Infostructure
http://www.devis.com