[Python-Dev] Re: csv module TODO list

[Martin Bless]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 10:37:17 +1100, Andrew McNamara
<andrewm at object-craft.com.au> wrote:

>>csv.join(aList, e[, dialect='excel'[, fmtparam]]) -> str object

Oops, should have been

csv.join(aList [, dialect='excel'[, fmtparam]]) -> str object

>Yes, it's feasible,

Good!

>although newlines can be embedded in within fields
>of a CSV record, hence the use of the iterator, rather than working with
>strings.

In my use cases newlines usually don't come into play. It would be ok
for me if they were treated as any other char.

> In your example above, if the parser gets to the end of the
>string and finds it's still within a field, I'd propose just raising
>an exception.

Yes, that seems to be "the right answer".

>No promises, however - I only have a finite ammount of time to work on
>this at the moment.

Sure!

To my feeling these  "intelligent split and join" functions most
naturally should actually be string methods. I can see that -
considering the conceivable variety of dialects - this can't be done.
One more reason to have 'split' and 'join' available from the csv
module! 

mb - Martin