[Python-Dev] Proof of the pudding: str.partition()

[Terry Reedy]

"Shane Hathaway" <shane at hathawaymix.org> wrote in message 
news:4314E51B.1050507 at hathawaymix.org...
> You can do both: make partition() return a sequence with attributes,
> similar to os.stat().  However, I would call the attributes "before",
> "sep", and "after".

One could see that as a special-case back-compatibility kludge that maybe 
should disappear in 3.0.  My impression is that the attributes were added 
precisely because unpacking several related attributes into several 
disconnected vars was found to be often awkward.  The sequencing is 
arbitrary and one often needs less that all attributes.

Terry J. Reedy