textwrap has problems wrapping hyphens

[goodger]

BPO	596434
Nosy	@goodger

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2003-05-07.01:21:42.000>
created_at = <Date 2002-08-17.14:46:32.000>
labels = ['library']
title = 'textwrap has problems wrapping hyphens'
updated_at = <Date 2003-05-07.01:21:42.000>
user = 'https://github.com/goodger'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2003-05-07.01:21:42.000>
actor = 'gward'
assignee = 'gward'
closed = True
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2002-08-17.14:46:32.000>
creator = 'goodger'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 596434
keywords = []
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['12039', '12040', '12041', '12042', '12043']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['gward', 'goodger']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue596434'
versions = ['Python 2.3']

[goodger]

(Greg already knows about this from private mail;
this makes it "official".)

Long multi-word command-line options (begin
with "--" and contain internal "-") inside text may be
wrapped badly by textwrap. For example, "--an-
option" may become "--\nan-option" or "--an-\
noption". Perhaps words that begin with hyphens
should not be wrapped at all?

[gward]

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Thanks for the reminder, David!

Fixed in Lib/textwrap.py rev 1.14.

[goodger]

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There's still an edge case that gives poor results. Try
wrapping "--text--.". It will wrap like "--text/--/.", leaving
just the period (".") or the dashes & period ("--.") on the
next line. The latter may or may not be a problem, but
I'd say wrapping just the sentence-ending period
definitely *is* a problem.

A more plausible example is "what the--.".

[goodger]

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More edge cases came up today. These break at the
slashes:

"(--option)" --> "(/--/option)"

"(--option-opt)" --> "(/--option-/opt)"

All but the last of these breaks are bad.

Perhaps TextWrapper should have a
"break_whitespace_only" option? This would be
especially useful for technical text, where breaks at
hyphens may change the text's meaning.

[gward]

Logged In: YES
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Finally! Fixed in rev 1.26 of Lib/textwrap.py, with tests
in rev 1.21 of Lib/test/test_textwrap.py.