Tim> I don't count that as "a practical fear" unless you actually
Tim> search for empty strings, and I don't believe that you do (or at
Tim> least not on purpose -- you can change my mind in a hurry by
Tim> posting your Python code that does do so, though!).
A hypothetical example for you.
Imagine an interactive program that rummages through a pile of
files to find files with particular properties. Such a program
might allow one to request a search by presenting a form to fill
out. Suppose that form has a fragment that looks like this:
+-------------------+
Search only files containing this string: | |
+-------------------+
If the user doesn't type anything into this part of the form, we would
like the search to cover all files.
If (s in t) yields true whenever s is null, this example just works.
Otherwise, the code needs a special case.
--
Andrew Koenig, ark@research.att.com, http://www.research.att.com/info/ark
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