shouldn't 'string'.find('ugh') return 0, not -1 ?

[Carl Banks]

On Oct 31, 9:31 am, jelle <jelleferi... at gmail.com> wrote:
> the subject pretty much says it all.
> if I check a string for for a substring, and this substring isn't found,
> should't the .find method return 0 rather than -1?
> this breaks the
>
> if check.find('something'):
>     do(somethingElse)
>
> idiom, which is a bit of a pity I think.

string.find has always been kind of a wart in Python; that's why
they're getting rid of it.  For testing for the presence of a
substring, use the in operator:

if "something" in check:
    do(somethingElse)

When you need the position of a substring, using the index methods:

i = check.index("something")

index returns an exception of the substring is not there, so no need
to worry about what it returns.

Finally, it really won't kill you to do this:

if check.find("something") >= 0:
    do(somethingElse)


Carl Banks