Yes, but I don't have to clutter my disk for that.
/usr/lib/python2.2 already exists, doesn't it? That's probably one of the few __init__.zip we'd ever see, since complete packages would certainly be a majority. OTOH, with the current implementation, the standard library is probably the only compressed package we'll ever see. That's just my opinion, of course, and I hope to be wrong.
- Don't have to change path to use compressed packages (at least not if you want to provide compressed packages, individual compressed modules or the standard library).
I thought you just explained that I will need to change the path to provide a compressed standard library, to point to a directory that contains an __init__.zip.
No, I didn't. The compressed library would be in /usr/lib/python2.2, which is already in the path.
- Don't have to specify the compression type hardcoded.
I don't understand that remark. If I have a zipfile, I surely must install a zipfile hook in your approach also - a .tar.bz2 hook won't be able to load the zipfile, no?
What I mean is: sys.path = ["/usr/lib/python2.2/stdlib.zip"] vs. sys.path = ["/usr/lib/python2.2"]
- Allows one to ship a package inside a zip file, without asking the user to change his path, and without hacking the package.
- Allows one to compress a single file (foobar.py.bz2).
This is really the same issue: If you had a mechanism to import a module from a .py.bz2 file, you could use the same mechanism to import a package (or subpackage) from a .zip file. While I think this might be desirable, I also think it was never the goal of PEP 273 to provide such a facility.
My purpose differs from what is in PEP 273, for sure. Anyway, I'd just like to expose the idea. If everybody disagrees, we can safely forget it now. -- Gustavo Niemeyer [ 2AAC 7928 0FBF 0299 5EB5 60E2 2253 B29A 6664 3A0C ]