A critique of cgi.escape

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <mailman.570.1159194107.10491.python-list at python.org>, Fredrik
Lundh wrote:

> Max M wrote:
> 
>> It also makes the  escaped html harder to read for standard cases.
> 
> and slows things down a bit.
> 
> (cgi.escape(s, True) is slower than cgi.escape(s), for reasons that are
> obvious for anyone who's looked at the code).

What you're doing is adding to the reasons why the existing cgi.escape
function is stupidly designed and implemented. The True case is by far the
most common, so to make that the slow case, as well as being the
non-default case, is doubly brain-dead.