John Skaller writes:
Obviously, this does not work. It tests if there is a symlinks attribute in os, not what should be tested:
1) if there is an attribute symlinks, it works according to spec 2) if there is not, then the os doesn't support symlinks
To perform (1) would require actually creating some symlinks, and seeing if they 'worked'. This is what autoconf does; it tries to compile various features, and it tests them as well (where they're _apparently_ available, and where it is possible to do a short test).
It would be much easier to _document_ that the symlinks attribute is present if and only if creation of symbolic links is supported with semantics XXXX (fill in specification here).
Oh, you want this to be an *operating system* standard. I don't think PyOS has been released yet. Seriously, a language should expose interfaces to system services, not make guarantees as to the conformance of the O/S to some standard. I think the Open Group is in charge of X/Open conformance these days. If you want a higher level interface, you need to build it. Once you've demonstrated generality, you can describe it as a standard, document it, and try and get others to adopt it. *That's* standardization. There are good reasons the IETF requires at least two independent implementations of a specification to make it an internet standard: that shows that the interface is sufficiently general and useful that it was worth two organizations supporting the development work. Until, it's just a specification. Which is the most we need here.
with some work done on building these frames, but I'm not actually using any of it.
Sounds like it's not really needed.
You might start by reading the relevant sections in the online interscript doco. Then there is something concrete to discuss.
As Greg Stein asked: please provide *specific* pointers: which sections are relevant?
Consider JPython everywhere. Don't assume CPython.
Good point, especially for those of us that don't normally use it.
-Fred
--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.