[Python-Dev] (Idea) subclassable string: path object?

[Jack Jansen]

One problem I see is that what you'd really like is to overload + and
split and such on path objects. But this creates a problem if you then
pass this path object to something that expects old-fashioned strings:
if it wants to manipulate that path it will use string operations,
which suddenly have different semantics...

Recently, Just van Rossum <just@letterror.com> said:
> Every once in a while I wished for an path object to manipulate file system
> paths. Things like
>    os.path.join(a, b, c, os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(p))[0] + ".ext")
> quickly get frustrating (so of course I never write them like that ;-).
> 
> I thought of implementing a path object several times, but always stopped whe
> n I
> realized (for the Nth time ;-) that you'd then have to do something like
>    file = open(p.tostring())
> whenever you want to *use* your pat. That doesn't help at all.
> 
> But: since strings are now subclassable (there are, aren't they?) this should
>  no
> longer be a problem!
> 
> Would it be a worthwile project to design and implement a path object for the
> standard library?
> 
> Just
> 
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