Bug #11729: String#split(nil) incorrectly uses $;

• Status: Closed
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -
• ruby -v: ruby 2.3.0dev (2015-11-21 trunk 52698) [x86_64-darwin14]
• Backport: 2.0.0: UNKNOWN, 2.1: UNKNOWN, 2.2: UNKNOWN

[tatzyr (Tatsuya Otsuka)]

Hi,

Is this intentional?

$; = "@"
"a@b".split(nil) # => ["a", "b"]

I expect ["a@b"] because I found the following sentence in the Japanese documentation.

1 バイトの空白文字 ' ' か nil
先頭と末尾の空白を除いたうえで、空白文字列で分割する。

http://docs.ruby-lang.org/ja/2.2.0/method/String/i/split.html

[yui-knk (Kaneko Yuichiro)]

I think this is intended.

Comment of MRI

and

rubyspec.

[yugui (Yuki Sonoda)]

String#split started to accept nil as a separator in Ruby 1.5/1.6. And the bahavior has not been changed since Ruby 1.6.

Maybe this is a documentation bug of RuReMa.

[yugui (Yuki Sonoda)]

• Status changed from Open to Closed

[yugui (Yuki Sonoda)]

Reported. https://github.com/rurema/doctree/issues/222

[yui-knk (Kaneko Yuichiro)]

I think it is better to fix the document of String#split

--- a/string.c
+++ b/string.c
@@ -6701,7 +6701,7 @@ static const char isspacetable[256] = {

 /*
  *  call-seq:
- *     str.split(pattern=$;, [limit])   -> anArray
+ *     str.split(pattern=nil, [limit])   -> anArray
  *
  *  Divides <i>str</i> into substrings based on a delimiter, returning an array
  *  of these substrings.
@@ -6716,8 +6716,8 @@ static const char isspacetable[256] = {
  *  <i>str</i> is split into individual characters. If <i>pattern</i> contains
  *  groups, the respective matches will be returned in the array as well.
  *
- *  If <i>pattern</i> is omitted, the value of <code>$;</code> is used.  If
- *  <code>$;</code> is <code>nil</code> (which is the default), <i>str</i> is
+ *  If <i>pattern</i> is <code>nil</code>, the value of <code>$;</code> is used.
+ *  If <code>$;</code> is <code>nil</code> (which is the default), <i>str</i> is
  *  split on whitespace as if ` ' were specified.
  *
  *  If the <i>limit</i> parameter is omitted, trailing null fields are

should I create another issue to discuss about the documentation change?
If no need I will commit it.