[New-bugs-announce] [issue32305] Namespace packages have inconsistent __file__ and __spec__.origin

[Barry A. Warsaw]

New submission from Barry A. Warsaw <barry at python.org>:

Along the lines of Issue32303 there's another inconsistency in namespace package metadata.  Let's say I have a namespace package:

>>> importlib_resources.tests.data03.namespace
<module 'importlib_resources.tests.data03.namespace' (namespace)>

The package has no __file__ attribute, and it has a misleading __spec__.origin

>>> importlib_resources.tests.data03.namespace.__spec__.origin
'namespace'
>>> importlib_resources.tests.data03.namespace.__file__
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: module 'importlib_resources.tests.data03.namespace' has no attribute '__file__'

This is especially bad because the documentation for __spec__.origin implies a correlation to __file__, and says:

"Name of the place from which the module is loaded, e.g. “builtin” for built-in modules and the filename for modules loaded from source. Normally “origin” should be set, but it may be None (the default) which indicates it is unspecified."

I don't particularly like that its origin is "namespace".  That's an odd special case that's unhelpful to test against (what if you import a non-namespace package from the directory "namespace"?)

What would break if __spec__.origin were (missing? or) None?

----------
messages: 308206
nosy: barry
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Namespace packages have inconsistent __file__ and __spec__.origin
versions: Python 3.5, Python 3.6, Python 3.7

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue32305>
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