Re: [HACKERS] string_to_array with empty input

On Mar 30, 2009, at 8:26 PM, Tom Lane wrote:

> Does anyone want to argue for keeping it the same? Or perhaps
> argue that a zero-element array is a more sensible result than
> a one-element array with one empty string? (It doesn't seem
> like it to me, but maybe somebody thinks so.)

Hrm. There seems to be some disagreement about this among some
languages:

% perl -le '@r = split /-/, ""; print length @r; print qq{"$r[0]"}'
1
""

% irb
>> puts ''.split('-')
=> nil

So Perl returns a single element as Steve had been expecting, while
Ruby returns nil. I'm used to the Perl way, but I guess there's room
for various interpretations, including the current implementation,
with which Ruby would seem to agree.

Best,

David