Use of '1' instead of 'True' as 'splitlines' argument in difflib documentation

[jayanthkoushik]

BPO	21232
Nosy	@terryjreedy, @nedbat, @ezio-melotti, @jayanthkoushik

^{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 = 'https://github.com/terryjreedy'
closed_at = <Date 2014-04-18.21:01:33.221>
created_at = <Date 2014-04-15.06:06:37.889>
labels = ['type-feature', 'docs']
title = "Use of '1' instead of 'True' as 'splitlines' argument in difflib documentation"
updated_at = <Date 2014-04-20.23:54:15.081>
user = 'https://github.com/jayanthkoushik'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2014-04-20.23:54:15.081>
actor = 'terry.reedy'
assignee = 'terry.reedy'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2014-04-18.21:01:33.221>
closer = 'python-dev'
components = ['Documentation']
creation = <Date 2014-04-15.06:06:37.889>
creator = 'jayanthkoushik'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 21232
keywords = []
message_count = 7.0
messages = ['216278', '216804', '216805', '216808', '216825', '216920', '216924']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['terry.reedy', 'nedbat', 'ezio.melotti', 'docs@python', 'python-dev', 'jayanthkoushik']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue21232'
versions = ['Python 3.4', 'Python 3.5']

[jayanthkoushik]

In the difflib documentation, multiple uses of 'splitlines' use '1' as the 'keepends' argument. In Python 2.x, 1 is not guaranteed to be True and while this is guaranteed in 3.x, it would be much clearer to specify the argument as 'True'.

[terryjreedy]

In 2.x, 1 is guaranteed to be true, in that sense that
  if 1: print 'true'
is guaranteed to print 'true', while True is not necessarily true.
>>> True = 0
>>> if True: print 'yes'

>>
So 2.x docs should not be changed.

[python-dev]

New changeset 604b74f9a07d by Terry Jan Reedy in branch '3.4':
Issue bpo-21232: Replace .splitlines arg '1' with 'keepends=True'.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/604b74f9a07d

New changeset c82dcad83438 by Terry Jan Reedy in branch 'default':
Merge with 3.4. Closes bpo-21232.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/c82dcad83438

[nedbat]

Although the OP was incorrect about 1 being guaranteed to be True, it is still better documentation to use True rather than 1 for a boolean argument.

[terryjreedy]

I believe that there have been discussions on this point and my memory is to leave 1 alone in 2.x docs. I could be mistaken though.

[ezio-melotti]

I think that the general consensus is that changing the value of True and False is not supported, and the result of doing it is undefined, so I think Ned request is reasonable.

[terryjreedy]

If you want to backport, go ahead.