'capwords' is not a string method

[the...@binary.net]

Here is something I very recently discovered . . . "capwords" are not
included as a method of the string type, but "upcase" is:

>>> str = "python rocks"
>>> str.capwords()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'capwords'
>>> str.upper()
'PYTHON ROCKS'

But "capwords" *is* included in the string module:

>>> string.capwords(str)
'Python Rocks'

So I can still do it, but this seems a little inconsistant to me. Is
there a reason, or is it just an oversight??

-- mikeh

--
Mike Hostetler
the...@binary.net
http://www.binary.net/thehaas
GnuPG key: http://www.binary.net/thehaas/mikeh.gpg

[Alex Martelli]

the...@binary.net wrote:
...

> But "capwords" *is* included in the string module:
>
>>>> string.capwords(str)
> 'Python Rocks'
>
> So I can still do it, but this seems a little inconsistant to me. Is
> there a reason, or is it just an oversight??
>
> -- mikeh

>>> import string
>>> string.capwords('python/rocks')
'Python/rocks'
>>> 'python/rocks'.title()
'Python/Rocks'
>>>

Apparently, they took occasion of the introduction of string
methods to replace the semi-crippled capwords (which only
capitalizes words _preceded by whitespace_) with the better
method title, which capitalizes words even when they are
preceded by punctuation, as well as whitespace. It seems
sensible to me -- the need met by .title() is more frequent,
and if the issue is backwards compatibility, capwords is
still around (in the semi-obsolescent string module -- only
semi, because it supplies crucial constants such as digits,
letters, whitespace, etc).

Alex

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

On 17-Jul-2002 the...@binary.net wrote:
>
> Here is something I very recently discovered . . . "capwords" are not
> included as a method of the string type, but "upcase" is:
>

my guess is the implementation for Unicode was not straight forward. Or
perhaps they felt that not every method of the string library needed to be
implemented on the new objects.

[the...@binary.net]

Alex Martelli <al...@aleax.it> wrote:
> Apparently, they took occasion of the introduction of string
> methods to replace the semi-crippled capwords (which only
> capitalizes words _preceded by whitespace_) with the better
> method title, which capitalizes words even when they are
> preceded by punctuation, as well as whitespace. It seems
> sensible to me -- the need met by .title() is more frequent,
> and if the issue is backwards compatibility, capwords is
> still around (in the semi-obsolescent string module -- only
> semi, because it supplies crucial constants such as digits,
> letters, whitespace, etc).

I didn't know about the 'title' method . . .I'll try that. I'd rather
use string's built-in methods than (how you put it) the semi-obsolescent
string module.