Case-insensitive string equality

[Steve D'Aprano]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 11:45 pm, Serhiy Storchaka wrote:

> It is not clear what is your problem exactly. 

That is fair. This is why I am discussing it here first, before taking it to
Python-Ideas. At the moment my ideas on the matter are still half-formed.


> The easy one-line function 
> solves the problem of testing case-insensitive string equality. 

True. Except that when a problem is as common as case-insensitive comparisons,
there should be a standard solution, instead of having to re-invent the wheel
over and over again. Even when the wheel is only two or three lines.

This is why we have dict.clear, for example, instead of:

    Just add this function to the top of every module and script

    def clear(d):
        for key in list(d.keys()): del d[key]


We say, *not every* two line function needs to be a builtin, rather than **no**
two line function.


> Regular 
> expressions solve the problem of case-insensitive searching a position
> of a substring.

And now you have two problems... *wink*


> If you asked a solution that magically prevent people 
> from making simple programming mistakes, there is no such solution.

Very true. But when there is a common source of mistakes, we can help prevent
that mistake.



-- 
Steve
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.