Hm. I agree with Raymond that this should be treated as a feature request and not "fixed" in 2.7 / 3.2. (However the mention of 'find' in the error message for 'index' is a bug and should be fixed.)
As for the feature request, I think that allowing None in more places is more regular and consistent across interfaces. I note that the slice() object also represents "missing" or "default" values as None, so it is not just a carryover from the old string.py. So, +1 on the feature for 3.3; -1 on the "fix" in 3.2 or 2.7. --Guido On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 11:56 AM, Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Nov 6, 2011, at 12:49 AM, Petri Lehtinen wrote: > > Currently, find(), rfind(), index(), rindex(), count(), startswith() > and endswith() of str, bytes and bytearray accept None. Should > list.index() and tuple.index() accept it, too? > > The string methods accept None as a historical artifact > of being in string.py where optional arguments defaulted to None. > That doesn't imply that you should change every other API that > accepts a start argument. > The list.index() API is ancient and stable. There has been little or > no demonstrated need for its start argument to be None. > Also, the list API does not exist in isolation. It shows up in > strings, the sequence ABC, and every API that aspires to > be list-like. > Overall, I'm -1 on this change and find it to be gratuitous. > We have *way* to many micro API changes of dubious benefit. > Also, the change should not have been applied to Py2.7 and Py3.2. > We don't backport API changes. That would just make Jython > and IronPython become non-compliant in mid-stream. > > Raymond > > > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/guido%40python.org > > -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
