doctest fails to NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE ?

[David MacKay]

Thanks everyone! Silly me  :-)

* Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> [2005-12-17 12:01]:
> [David MacKay]
> > Hello, I'm a python-list newbie. I've got a question about doctest; perhaps
> > a bug report.
> 
> As things will turn out, it's just a question.  That's common for newbies :-)

I've got a follow-up question motivated by my ugly backslash continuations.

> When Python doesn't "look clean", it's not Python -- and backslash
> continuation & semicolons often look like dirt to the experienced
> Python's eye.

The reason I was making those ugly single-line monsters was 
I had somehow got the impression that each fresh line starting ">>>" was tested 
_completely_separately_ by doctest; so, to preserve state I thought I had to write 

>>> a=[2, 5, 1];  a.sort();  print a
[1, 2, 5]

rather than 

>>> a=[2, 5, 1]
>>> a.sort()
>>> print a
[1, 2, 5]

But I see now I was wrong.  Question: 
Does doctest always preserve 
   state throughout the entire sequence of tests enclosed by `"""`, as if the tests were 
   entered in a single interactive session? 
Or is there a way to instruct doctest to forget its state, and start 
   the next `>>>` with a clean slate? 

Thanks very much!
David

-- 
--
David J.C. MacKay     mackay at aims.ac.za     787 9336
                      http://www.aims.ac.za/~mackay/