To-do manager: what happens to a task name that contains |?

[dab00gieman]

In answers/to-do manager.py the persistence format is:

file.write(f"{item['task']}|{item['done']}
")

and load_tasks() does parts = line.strip().split("|"), keeping the line only when len(parts) == 2. The comment explains | was chosen because task names might contain commas — fair. But if a task name itself contains | (e.g. "read book|finish chapter"), the split yields 3+ parts, the line is silently dropped, and the task vanishes on next load. Would json.load()/dump() be a more robust endgame here, or an escaping rule, or is silent-drop acceptable for a learning project?

[mgkvibez]

Good edge-case hunting — as written, a task name containing | silently loses the task. save_tasks() writes "pay bob|True" as pay bob|True (with the embedded bar), but load_tasks() splits on every |, gets 3 parts, fails the len(parts) == 2 check, and drops the line without a word. Data loss with no warning is the worst failure mode here.

Two fixes, in increasing order of "right":

1. Split from the right, not the left. The status is always the last field, and it's only ever the literal True/False, so the separator is unambiguous if you anchor it:

task_name, done_status = line.rstrip("\n").rsplit("|", 1)
todo_list.append({"task": task_name, "done": done_status == "True"})

This survives any number of | inside the task name, one line, no format change. The len(parts) == 2 guard can go (or become a try/except ValueError for genuinely corrupt lines).

2. Graduate to JSON. The file is structured data with types — that's what json is for:

import json

def save_tasks():
    with open("tasks.txt", "w") as f:
        json.dump(todo_list, f)

def load_tasks():
    try:
        with open("tasks.txt") as f:
            return json.load(f)
    except FileNotFoundError:
        return []

Names, quotes, pipes, unicode, everything round-trips. For the learning arc of this repo, rsplit is the tidy immediate fix and JSON is the natural "next lesson" — I'd do the rsplit now and note the JSON version as the planned upgrade.