[Python-Dev] Iterable String Redux (aka String ABC) (original) (raw)

Boris Borcic bborcic at gmail.com
Wed May 28 13🔞32 CEST 2008

Armin Ronacher wrote:

Basically the problematic situation with iterable strings is something like a flatten function that flattens out every iterable object except of strings.

To flesh out the span of your "something like", recently I had a WSGI-based app that to some request mistakenly returned a 200K string instead of the same wrapped as a 1-element list; and the WSGI layer -according to spec- served it back character by character. Which "worked" - and durably confused not only me but IIS and a network router as well.

While blame can certainly be assigned elsewhere - WSGI spec or implementation (wsgiref included) - unwelcome iterability of strings was a necessary cause.

Cheers, BB

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