From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel,gmane.emacs.xemacs.design Subject: Re: Rationale for split-string? Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:14:31 -0400 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <87brz57at2.fsf@tleepslib.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <200304171744.h3HHiJCx009215@rum.cs.yale.edu> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1050725697 28353 80.91.224.249 (19 Apr 2003 04:14:57 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 04:14:57 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Sat Apr 19 06:14:55 2003 Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 196jkd-0007N9-00 for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:14:55 +0200 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 196joG-0005d5-00 for ; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:18:40 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 196jki-0007Sr-09 for emacs-devel@quimby.gnus.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:15:00 -0400 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 196jkI-0007Si-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:14:34 -0400 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10.13) id 196jkH-0007SS-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:14:33 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10.13) id 196jkG-0007SL-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:14:32 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.10) id 196jkF-0005dy-00; Sat, 19 Apr 2003 00:14:31 -0400 Original-To: "Stefan Monnier" In-reply-to: <200304171744.h3HHiJCx009215@rum.cs.yale.edu> (monnier+gnu/emacs@rum.cs.yale.edu) Original-cc: xemacs-design@xemacs.org Original-cc: stephen@xemacs.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1b5 Precedence: list List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Archive: List-Unsubscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+emacs-devel=quimby.gnus.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:13293 gmane.emacs.xemacs.design:2071 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:13293 RS> I know of no reason to want them to be different. Fantastic! Steve Turnbull is a thorough guy, so I'm sure that he will send you a patch so you can fix GNU/Emacs' split-string. First we need to figure out what is the right behavior for that function. People are already discussing the question... > (split-string ",,data,," ",") > => ("" "data" "") Is that wrong? If so, what result do you think is right? ("" "" "data" "" "") could be argued for, but I am not sure it is better. A gross hack is to test if the last char of the regexp is ?+ and if so get rid of empty strings at start and end. It should take care of 99% of the cases. That is a kludge. Whatever we do, it should not be that.