dox_style: Using exclude with a string leads to unexpected results

[jan-bruckner]

An exclude that uses a string (instead of a list containing one or multiple strings) can lead to unexpected results.

In the following example, each character of the string is treated as a separate exclusion pattern. Thus, an exclusion pattern '*' exists which leads to all modules being excluded from the check instead of just the module module-name:

stylecheck = {
    'top_level_modulename': {'exclude': '**/module-name/**'}
}

The correct way to achieve exclusion of only module-name is:

stylecheck = {
    'top_level_modulename': {'exclude': ['**/module-name/**']}
}

I think this should be detected/prevented. Maybe only lists should be allowed as value for the exclude key?

[aschaal]

That is indeed misleading / confusing, thank you for the hint.

Yes, only allowing lists would be a good solution. Alternatively, detecting the string and convert it to a list with one entry on-the-fly.
In this case, the documentation needs a hint to cover that.