A critique of cgi.escape

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <efaknl$867$2 at news.albasani.net>, Georg Brandl wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> In message <4517e10e$0$13929$edfadb0f at dread15.news.tele.dk>, Max M wrote:
>> 
>>> Lawrence is right that the escape method doesn't work the way he expects
>>> it to.
>>> 
>>> Rewriting a library module simply because a developer is surprised is a
>>> *very* bad idea.
>> 
>> I'm not surprised. Disappointed, yes. Verging on disgust at some comments
>> in this thread, yes. But "surprised" is what a lot of users of the
>> existing cgi.escape function are going to be when they discover their
>> code isn't doing what they thought it was.
> 
> Why should they be surprised? The documentation states clearly what
> cgi.escape() does (as does the docstring).

Documentation frequently states stupid things. Doesn't mean it should be
treated as sacrosanct.