Re: new strsplit function

[John W. Eaton]

On 04/02/2013 07:40 PM, Ben Abbott wrote:
> On Apr 2, 2013, at 6:35 PM, Carnë Draug wrote:
>
> > On 2 April 2013 18:04, Ben Abbott<address@hidden>  wrote:
> >
> > > On Apr 2, 2013, at 12:00 PM, Carnë Draug wrote:
> > >
> > > > On 2 April 2013 13:02, Ben Abbott<address@hidden>  wrote:
> > > > > I've added a "conventional" to the possible delimitertypes, and selected this 
> > > > > as the default when all delimiters are scalar characters. I've also enabled 2D character 
> > > > > array inputs. The following replacements may be made into OF, and Octave core, to use 
> > > > > Jaroslav's implementation.  A changeset to core to use these substitutions will also be 
> > > > > needed.
> > > > >
> > > > > - strsplit (str, del)
> > > > > + strsplit (str, del, "collapsedelimiters", false, "delimitertype", 
> > > > > "conventional")
> > > > >
> > > > > - strsplit (str, del, false)
> > > > > + strsplit (str, del, "collapsedelimiters", false, "delimitertype", 
> > > > > "conventional")
> > > > >
> > > > > - strsplit (str, del, true)
> > > > > + strsplit (str, del, "collapsedelimiters", true, "delimitertype", 
> > > > > "conventional")
> > > >
> > > > That means that OF packages with this change, will only work after 3.8
> > > > being released, and the ones without the change will stop working once
> > > > 3.8 is released, so the releases would have to be timed.
> > > >
> > > > Instead, I propose we add the old strsplit in the private directory of
> > > > each package. Then, once 3.8 gets released, we can remove them and
> > > > make the change as each package gets re-released.
> > >
> > > That's a good idea!
> >
> > I have just made the change on revision 11779. I have also created a
> > new task on the trackers https://savannah.gnu.org/task/index.php?12561
> > so we don't forget what packages got affected.
> >
> > Finally, geometry and mechanics package need to be fixed some other
> > way since they make use of it on PKG_DEL and PKD_ADD scripts.
> >
> > Carnë
>
> I pushed a slightly modified changeset.
>
>         http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/rev/5be43435bd5b

In a recent changeset, you made the following change:

  -    list = strsplit (list, " \n\t", true);
  +    list = strsplit (list, " \n\t", true, "delimitertype", "legacy");

If people will have to make a change in their code to recover previous 
behavior does is really help to introduce a new option like this?  Isn't 
this equivalent to

  list = strsplit (list, {" ", "\n", "\t"})

?  Why not just tell people to make this change instead of introducing 
the "legacy" delimiter type?

Also, the new strsplit does not seem to be working correctly for 
single-quoted strings that contain escape sequences.  I think that

  strsplit ("foo\tbar", '\t')

should split on the TAB, but it is currently returning the original 
string for me.

This is starting to look a bit messy.  Maybe we should revert this 
change until we have a better plan for the transition.  Maybe it would 
be good to give people some advance warning before making this change 
all at once.

jwe