Bug or feature? 'abc'.split('') rejects empty separator

[Erik Max Francis]

Neil Schemenauer wrote:

> Bengt Richter wrote:
>
> > Wouldn't it make sense to return list('abc') ?
> 
> It would also make sense to return ['a', 'b', 'c'].  Since it's not
> obvious what you want Python raises an error.

That's what list('abc') would return.  But in actuality, for it to be
consistent with the rest of string.split's behavior, 'abc'.split('')
would have to return ['', 'a', 'b', 'c', ''], not ['a', 'b', 'c'].

Another beautiful example of why string.split('') should raise an error
instead of trying to guess what you mean.

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