http://bugs.python.org/issue11344 evolved into a patch for 'splitpath', similar to splitall. Antoine's pathlib (PEP 428) is also mentioned at the end, which is probably what Guido is thinking of. --David On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:26:08 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote:

Thoughts on os.path? What happened to the idea of a new path object?

--Guido

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Talin Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 12:34 PM Subject: Re: I was just thinking that os.path could use some love... To: Guido van Rossum

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

...

Hmm... Mind if I just forward to python-dev? IIRC there's been some discussion about a newfangled path object, but I lost track of where the discussion went. (Or you can post there yourself. :-)

Sure - forward away. Is this the same as the path object idea that was floated 5 years ago? I've yet to see any set of convenience methods for paths that are so compelling as to be worth all of the time and energy needed to update all of the various APIs which now expect paths to be passed in as strings.

...

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Talin wrote:

...

I just realized that os.path hasn't changed in a long time. Here's a couple of ideas for additions:

os.path.splitall(path) - splits all path components into a tuple - so for example, 'this/is/a/path' turns into ('this', 'is', 'a', 'path'). If there's a trailing slash, the last item in the tuple will be a zero-length string. The main reason for having this in os.path is so that we can remain separator-character-agnostic.

Would it also return a leading empty string if the path starts with /? What about Windows C: or //host/ prefixes???

I would say that it should only split on directory separators, not any other kind of delimiter, so that each component is a valid filesystem identifier. Further, the operation should be reversible by calling os.path.join(*dirnames). So it's a little more complex than just string.split('/').

Part of the reason for wanting the splitall function is to implement the common prefix function - you take all the paths, bust them into tuples, look for the longest tuple prefix, and then join the result back into a path. This means that os.path.join(*os.path.splitall(path)) must reproduce the original path exactly.

...

...

An alternative would be to add an optional 'maxsplits' parameter to os.path.split. Default would be 1; 0 = unlimited. Main disadvantage would be that no one would ever use values 2, 3, etc... but it would be more compatible with other split apis.

A version of os.path.commonprefix that always produces valid paths (and works by path component, not character-by-character).

I can probably think of others if I look at some other path manipulation apis. llvm::sys::path has a bunch if I recall...

-- -- Talin

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)

-- -- Talin

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/rdmurray%40bitdance.com

On 30Jan2013 13:26, Guido van Rossum wrote: | Thoughts on os.path? What happened to the idea of a new path object? [...] | From: Talin [...] | On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote: | > Hmm... Mind if I just forward to python-dev? IIRC there's been some | > discussion about a newfangled path object, but I lost track of where | > the discussion went. (Or you can post there yourself. :-) | | Sure - forward away. Is this the same as the path object idea that was | floated 5 years ago? I've yet to see any set of convenience methods | for paths that are so compelling as to be worth all of the time and | energy needed to update all of the various APIs which now expect paths | to be passed in as strings. Speaking for myself, I've been having some usefulness with making "URL" objects that are subclasses of str. That lets me pass them to all the things that already expect strs, while still having convenience methods. Combined with a little factory function to make a "URL" from a bare str should it be needed, it has worked fairly well. It is certainly not seamless all the time... Eg: U = URL(s) # returns s if already an instance of _URL len(U) # I'm still a string U.startswith("http:") U.scheme # eg "http" U.hrefs # fetch content, parse as HTML, return links Just a thought on supporting code expecting strings. Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx

Le Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:26:08 -0800, Guido van Rossum a écrit :

Thoughts on os.path? What happened to the idea of a new path object?

I plan to launch another round of discussions following the changes in PEP 428. Regards Antoine.

--Guido

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Talin Date: Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 12:34 PM Subject: Re: I was just thinking that os.path could use some love... To: Guido van Rossum

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 11:33 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:

...

Hmm... Mind if I just forward to python-dev? IIRC there's been some discussion about a newfangled path object, but I lost track of where the discussion went. (Or you can post there yourself. :-)

Sure - forward away. Is this the same as the path object idea that was floated 5 years ago? I've yet to see any set of convenience methods for paths that are so compelling as to be worth all of the time and energy needed to update all of the various APIs which now expect paths to be passed in as strings.

...

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Talin wrote:

...

I just realized that os.path hasn't changed in a long time. Here's a couple of ideas for additions:

os.path.splitall(path) - splits all path components into a tuple - so for example, 'this/is/a/path' turns into ('this', 'is', 'a', 'path'). If there's a trailing slash, the last item in the tuple will be a zero-length string. The main reason for having this in os.path is so that we can remain separator-character-agnostic.

Would it also return a leading empty string if the path starts with /? What about Windows C: or //host/ prefixes???

I would say that it should only split on directory separators, not any other kind of delimiter, so that each component is a valid filesystem identifier. Further, the operation should be reversible by calling os.path.join(*dirnames). So it's a little more complex than just string.split('/').

Part of the reason for wanting the splitall function is to implement the common prefix function - you take all the paths, bust them into tuples, look for the longest tuple prefix, and then join the result back into a path. This means that os.path.join(*os.path.splitall(path)) must reproduce the original path exactly.

...

...

An alternative would be to add an optional 'maxsplits' parameter to os.path.split. Default would be 1; 0 = unlimited. Main disadvantage would be that no one would ever use values 2, 3, etc... but it would be more compatible with other split apis.

A version of os.path.commonprefix that always produces valid paths (and works by path component, not character-by-character).

I can probably think of others if I look at some other path manipulation apis. llvm::sys::path has a bunch if I recall...

-- -- Talin

-- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)

-- -- Talin