[Python-ideas] Deprecating rarely used str methods

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le Thu, 08 Aug 2013 21:32:16 +0300,
Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka at gmail.com> a
écrit :

> The str class have some very rarely used methods. When was the last
> time you used swapcase() (not counting the time of apprenticeship)?
> These methods take place in a source code, documentation and a memory
> of developers. Due to the large number of methods, some of the really 
> necessary methods can be neglected. I propose to deprecate rarely
> used methods (especially that for most of them there is another, more
> obvious way) and remove them in 4.0.
> 
> s.ljust(width) == '{:<{}}'.format(s, width) == '%-*s' % (width, s)
> s.ljust(width, fillchar) == '{:{}<{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)
> s.rjust(width) == '{:>{}}'.format(s, width) == '%*s' % (width, s)
> s.rjust(width, fillchar) == '{:{}>{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)
> s.center(width) == '{:^{}}'.format(s, width)
> s.center(width, fillchar) == '{:{}^{}}'.format(s, fillchar, width)

-1 for deprecating those 3, they are much more readable than the format
equivalent (seriously, those smiley-like format specs are horrible...).

> str(n).zfill(width) == '{:0={}}'.format(n, width) == '%0*.f' %
> (width,n)
> 
> str.swapcase() is just not needed.

I'm ok with yanking those two.

> str.expandtabs([tabsize]) is rarely used and can be moved to the 
> textwrap module.

No opinion.

Regards

Antoine.