Bug or feature? 'abc'.split('') rejects empty separator

[Luca Fini]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, David C. Ullrich wrote:

> On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:05:01 -0500, "Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >[Bengt Richter]
> >>  >>> 'abc'.split('')
> >>  Traceback (most recent call last):
> >>    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> >>  ValueError: empty separator
> >>
> >> Wouldn't it make sense to return list('abc') ?
> >
> >[Neil Schemenauer]
> >> It would also make sense to return ['a', 'b', 'c'].
> >

My 2 cent worth opinion is that it should return ['a', 'b', 'c'].

The characters are separated by "nothing". It also would maintain simmetry
with join() which is not bad.

BTW: this is how the corresponding functions work in perl. Maybe this is a 
reason to do it differently ;-)

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