[Distutils] distlib.mount API design (was: wheels on sys.path clarification (reboot))

[Paul Moore]

On 30 January 2014 12:29, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I actually think this is a useful thing to experiment with, I'm just
> not sure distlib is the best place for that experiment. With
> appropriately secure tempfile handling and the right sys.path (and
> module __path__) manipulation it's not obviously *impossible* to
> handle C extensions at arbitrary positions in the module namespace
> this way, just difficult. zipimport itself is a bad place to
> experiment though, since not only is it currently a complex ball of C
> code, but adding such a feature without clear evidence of robust
> support in a third party project would be irresponsible.

I just sent a long message that essentially gave a chunk of history
and suggested a similar thing - an "enhanced zipimport" module to
experiment with solutions in this space. With importlib available, an
experimental implementation shouldn't even be too hard.

The only difference is that I see very little reason why such a
solution can't apply to all zipfiles, and not just wheels.
Paul