Thanks so much to everyone who discussed and reviewed the code and made suggestions.

The bulk of these patches have now landed. For those following along at home, here’s a summary of the remaining PRs/bugs :

- #18909 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18909 / bpo-39950 https://bugs.python.org/issue39950: Add Path.hardlink_to() method that supersedes link_to() - Note: already under core review - #25271 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/25271 / bpo-42998 https://bugs.python.org/issue42998: Add ‘user’ parameter to Path.home() - #25240 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/25240 / bpo-40107 https://bugs.python.org/issue40107: Stop using os.open() to implement Path.open() - #25264 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/25264 / bpo-43757 https://bugs.python.org/issue43757: Make Path.resolve() use os.path.realpath() to resolve all symlinks in a path - Note: changes realpath() behaviour when symlink loops are encountered (!), and adds a keyword-only 'strict' param. - #25277 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/25277 / bpo-39899 https://bugs.python.org/issue39899: Follow-up fix for oversight in #18841 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18841

I believe this is a complete account of the outstanding prep work. Once these land, pathlib’s *path*, *flavour* and *accessor* abstractions will be less leaky, which allows work on pathlib.AbstractPath to proceed.

Thanks again to Antoine Pitrou, Brett Cannon, Serhiy Storchaka, Steve Dower and Eryk Sun for their invaluable contributions.

Barney

On Sat, 3 Apr 2021 at 03:02, Barney Gale barney.gale@gmail.com wrote:

I’m working towards supporting subclassing pathlib.Path for things like zip/tar archives, iso files, S3, etc. This was first brought up a few years ago in bpo-24132 https://bugs.python.org/issue24132 and discussed further on the python-ideas forum https://discuss.python.org/t/make-pathlib-extensible/3428.

Before I can approach the meat of the issue, I'd like to land a handful of backwards-compatible patches that tidy up the pathlib internals. These are:

• #19220 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/19220 / bpo-39924

https://bugs.python.org/issue39924: Handle missing os functions more consistently in pathlib

• #18838 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18838 / bpo-39895

https://bugs.python.org/issue39895: Move pathlib.Path.touch() implementation into the path accessor

• #19342 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/19342 / bpo-40038

https://bugs.python.org/issue40038: Remove partial support for preserving accessor when modifying a path

• #18841 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18841 / bpo-39899

https://bugs.python.org/issue39899: Make pathlib use os.path.expanduser() to expand home directories

• #18834 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18834 / bpo-39659

https://bugs.python.org/issue39659: Route calls from pathlib.Path to os.getcwd() via the path accessor

• #18864 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/18864 / bpo-39906

https://bugs.python.org/issue39906: Add follow_symlinks parameter to pathlib.Path.stat() and chmod()

• #24294 https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/24294 / bpo-42999

https://bugs.python.org/issue42999: Expand and clarify pathlib.Path.link_to() documentation

Could I please request review of these patches? A couple may already be ready to land.

(I appreciate they’re a little dry. This is all prep work for the introduction of a shiny new class, tentatively named ‘AbstractPath’).

Thanks!

Barney