docs: def _partition(entity, sep):
      """Python2.4 doesn't have a partition method so we provide
      our own that mimics str.partition from later releases.
  
      Split the string at the first occurrence of sep, and return a
      3-tuple containing the part before the separator, the separator
      itself, and the part after the separator. If the separator is not
      found, return a 3-tuple containing the string itself, followed
      by two empty strings.
      """
      parts = entity.split(sep, 1)
      if len(parts) == 2:
          return parts[0], sep, parts[1]
      else:
          return entity, '', ''