Replace get_attribute_text with get_attribute_list.

4 files changed, 14 insertions, 14 deletions

diff --git a/NEWS.txt b/NEWS.txt
index 91fe13c..602e7c1 100644
--- a/NEWS.txt
+++ b/NEWS.txt
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 = 4.6.0 (Unreleased) =
 
-* Added the `Tag.get_attribute_text` method, which acts like `Tag.get` for
-  getting the value of an attribute, but which joins attribute
-  multi-values into a single string value. [bug=1678589]
+* Added the `Tag.get_attribute_list` method, which acts like `Tag.get` for
+  getting the value of an attribute, but which always returns a list,
+  whether or not the attribute is a multi-value attribute. [bug=1678589]
 
 * It's now possible to use a tag's namespace prefix when searching,
   e.g. soup.find('namespace:tag') [bug=1655332]
diff --git a/bs4/element.py b/bs4/element.py
index 71cdb65..526db28 100644
--- a/bs4/element.py
+++ b/bs4/element.py
@@ -992,11 +992,11 @@ class Tag(PageElement):
         attribute."""
         return self.attrs.get(key, default)
 
-    def get_attribute_text(self, key, default=None):
-        """The same as get(), but converts lists of values to strings."""
+    def get_attribute_list(self, key, default=None):
+        """The same as get(), but always returns a list."""
         value = self.get(key, default)
-        if isinstance(value, list):
-            value = " ".join(value)
+        if not isinstance(value, list):
+            value = [value]
         return value
     
     def has_attr(self, key):
diff --git a/bs4/tests/test_tree.py b/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
index 90a6d25..c0e7c40 100644
--- a/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
+++ b/bs4/tests/test_tree.py
@@ -1286,9 +1286,9 @@ class TestCDAtaListAttributes(SoupTest):
         soup = self.soup("<a class='foo\tbar'>")
         self.assertEqual(b'<a class="foo bar"></a>', soup.a.encode())
 
-    def test_attribute_values_joined_into_string_through_string_attr(self):
-        soup = self.soup("<a class='foo\tbar'>")
-        self.assertEqual('foo bar', soup.a.get_attribute_text('class'))
+    def test_get_attribute_list(self):
+        soup = self.soup("<a id='abc def'>")
+        self.assertEqual(['abc def'], soup.a.get_attribute_list('id'))
         
     def test_accept_charset(self):
         soup = self.soup('<form accept-charset="ISO-8859-1 UTF-8">')
diff --git a/doc/source/index.rst b/doc/source/index.rst
index 7bee329..e1b73aa 100644
--- a/doc/source/index.rst
+++ b/doc/source/index.rst
@@ -428,11 +428,11 @@ consolidated::
  print(rel_soup.p)
  # <p>Back to the <a rel="index contents">homepage</a></p>
 
-You can use ```get_attribute_text`` to get the value of any attribute as a
-string, whether or not it's a multi-valued atribute::
+You can use ```get_attribute_list`` to get a value that's always a list,
+string, whether or not it's a multi-valued atribute
 
-  css_soup.p.get_attribute_text('class')
-  # "body strikeout"
+  id_soup.p.get_attribute_list('id')
+  # ["my id"]
  
 If you parse a document as XML, there are no multi-valued attributes::