[Python-Dev] proposed which.py replacement

[Stefan Rank]

on 31.03.2007 22:39 Guido van Rossum said the following:
> If you ask me, having it hosted by Trent is probably more helpful for
> its popularity than putting it in the Python source distro; the Tools
> directory is mostly a poorly-maintained collection of trivia I wrote
> many years ago that is now quietly gathering dust.

Some time ago, I posted a `feature request`_ about which.py including 
the proposal to put it into the std-lib as
``which`` or ``os.which`` to allow programmatic use and::

   python -m which ...

This should take care of the visibility problem. ;-)
However, there are several todos_, including tests and docs, before this 
can even be considered.

I am afraid I did not have any time to work on it yet.

cheers,
stefan


.. _feature request: 
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1509798&group_id=5470&atid=355470
.. _todos: http://trentm.com/projects/which/TODO.txt


> (Not all of it, of course; there's some useful stuff there that I
> *didn't* write, which ended up there because it is either *used* by
> the distro (e.g. the compiler package support) or because the author
> needed a channel that guaranteed open source status (e.g. world and
> pynche). But Trent's which.py doesn't seem to fall in either
> category.)
> 
> --Guido
> 
> On 3/31/07, Shane Geiger <sgeiger at ncee.net> wrote:
>> Trent Mick has a module called which.py that might make a nice
>> platform-independent replacement for python2.5/Tools/scripts/which.py.
>>
>> http://www.trentm.com/projects/which/
>>
>>     Why which.py?
>>
>> |which.py| is a small GNU-which replacement. It has the following features:
>>
>>     * it is portable (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Un*x);
>>     * it understands PATHEXT and "App Paths" registration on Windows
>>       (i.e. it will find everything that |start| does from the command
>>       shell);
>>     * it can print all matches on the PATH;
>>     * it can note "near misses" on the PATH (e.g. files that match but
>>       may not, say, have execute permissions); and
>>     * it can be used as a Python module.
>>
>> I also would be happy to have this be a replacement for the |which.py|
>> in the Python CVS tree at |dist/src/Tools/scripts/which.py| which is
>> Unix-specific and not usable as a module; and perhaps for inclusion in
>> the stdlib.