On Fri, Jan 02, 2015 at 08:24:26AM -0500, random832@fastmail.us wrote:
Not having one [move to trash function] isn't acceptable either.
I'm not sure about that. Do other languages offer a move-to-trash functionality? Say, PHP, Javascript, Java, Ruby, Boo, Go, Lua? If Python is the odd one out that DOESN'T offer such functionality, and all the others do, then you might have a strong case. Otherwise, consider that the great bulk of scripts that are written in Python don't do any file management at all, other than perhaps reading or writing a few files. So even if Python gained this functionality, it wouldn't have any impact on most scripts and applications.[1]
Because what _not_ having a cross-platform wrapper gets you is windows and mac left behind
Really? I would expect that Windows is probably the *easiest* platform to implement this functionality, as it has a single, standard, stable API for moving files to trash. (Or so I am lead to believe.) You can probably use that API via ctypes, or via pywin32. Getting OS X right is very complicated, as Andrew has so ably explained. In Linux and other Unixes, the situation is like OS X, only more so since there's no one single authority. You have a choice of desktop environments, which may or may not provide a move-to-trash API, including no desktop environment at all. Gnome provides an API for moving to trash, but I don't know how well it supports the freedesktop standard; KDE supports the freedesktop standard, but I don't know if it provides an API that can be called. XFCE has partial support. It seems to me that "move to trash" is at least straight forward on Windows, but tricky and complicated everywhere else. Or, there is always the option of using a third-party module: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Send2Trash [1] With one possible exception. If Andrew is correct, then the wrong implementation of move-to-trash might effect in a bad way anyone trying to put their app on the Apple Store, whether they use that move-to-trash functionality or not. -- Steve