Re: [matplotlib-devel] A question about cbook.is_string_like

[Jouni K S. <jk...@ik...>]

"Nicolas Grilly" <nic...@ga...> writes:

[about is_string_like]
> But in this function, I don't like the idea to try an operation on a
> string, and wait for an exception in order to know if we really have a
> string or not. It's not very efficient, nor very beautiful.

I wouldn't worry about efficiency until there is a demonstrable need
to speed something up.

> I guess initial developer did that to keep compatibility with old
> Python versions.

I've always thought that is_string_like is there to allow
compatibility with _future_ code where someone is using a new kind of
string-like object that works just like a string but for which
isinstance(x, (str, unicode)) is false.

-- 
Jouni