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

[Paul Rubin]

Erik Max Francis <max at alcyone.com> writes:
> > It seems to me like the principle that programs should be able to "do
> > nothing" gracefully.  The argument is that split should be the inverse
> > of join, even when the splitting string is empty.
> > 
> > Imagine if "a+0" raised an error.  You wouldn't say "just use 'a'
> > instead".
> 
> That is simply not comparable.  The purpose of split is to divide up a
> string according to a delimiter.  Asking for it to split a string given
> a null delimiter doesn't make much sense at all; if you're calling
> string.split with the intent of dividing it up and you're passing in ''
> as a delimiter, that's almost certainly a mistake. 

That's the counter-argument.  Time for a PEP.  <wink>