TIP #358: Suppress Empty List Element Generation from the Split Command
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TIP:	358
Title:	Suppress Empty List Element Generation from the Split Command
Version:	$Revision: 1.2 $
Authors:	George Petasis <petasis@iit.demokritos.gr>
State:	Draft
Type:	Project
Tcl-Version:	8.7
Vote:	Pending
Created:	Sun Oct 04 00:00:00 UTC 2009
Keywords:	Tcl, list extraction, parsing
Abstract
The split command will create empty list elements when adjacent split characters are found in the input. In some cases these empty list elements are not desired, so this TIP proposes a new switch to disable their generation.
Rationale
The idea for this TIP came from a discussion in comp.lang.tcl: [http://groups.google.gr/group/comp.lang.tcl/browse_thread/thread/8d46b0f10e7a5750/d7844cc739aa4310] and the (non obvious) suggestions on how tokens can be extracted from a string can be performed efficiently.
It should be noted that this will allow the split command to be used in a fashion that is very similar to how splitting works in many other languages (e.g., Perl, awk, Unix shells).
Specification
This TIP proposes a new optional switch (-noemptyelements) to the split command:
split -noemptyelements string ?splitChars?
If this option is present, then split will not produce an empty list element when the string contains adjacent characters that are present in splitChars.
Reference Implementation
Currently there is no patch, but it should be quite easy to implement this.
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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