Larry Trammell <ridge...@nwi.net> added the comment:

Assuming that my understanding is completely correct, the situation is that the 
xml parser has an unspecified behavior.  This is true in any text content 
handler, at any time, and applies to the expat parser as well as SAX. In some 
rare cases, the behavior of the current implementation (and also many past 
ones) sometimes seems inconsistent and can catch users by surprise -- even some 
who are relatively knowledgable (which does not include me). 

This is a little abstract, but two things could be done to improve this:

1. Modify the implementation so that the behavior remains unspecified but falls 
more in line with plausible expectations of the users.  This makes things a 
little more complicated for the implementer, but does not invalidate the 
documentation of present or past versions. 

2. The documentation could be updated to expose the new constraints on the 
previously unspecified behavior, giving users a better chance to recognize and 
prepare for any remaining difficulties.  However, the implementation changes 
could be made even without these documentation changes.

So I remain confused about whether this is really a "bug" -- it is an "easy but 
unfortunate implementation choice" that is technically not wrong, even if 
sometimes baffling.  Established applications that already use older parser 
versions are relatively unlikely to start failing given the kind of documents 
they process, so backport changes might be helpful but do not seem urgent. 

Eric, with this clarification, what is your opinion about how to properly post 
a new issue -- improvement or bug fix?  I can provide a more detailed technical 
explanation where a new issue is posted.

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<https://bugs.python.org/issue43483>
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