[Python-3000] Path Reform: Get the ball rolling

[Fredrik Lundh]

Mike Orr wrote:

 > You may think 'shutil' has to do with shells, not paths.

well, it has; it provides Python implementations of selected shell commands.

 > Why is 'split' in os.path but 'stat' and 'mkdir' and 'remove' are in
 > os?  Don't they all operate on paths?

no.  are you saying that you're unable to see the conceptual difference 
between a name and an object?

 > There have been a few additional ideas on python-dev but no code.
 > Nick Coghlan suggested separate classes for (A) string manipulation,
 > (B) abstract path operations, (C) read-only inspection of filesystem,
 > (D) add/remove files/directories/links.

that's the only remotely sane path-related proposal I've seen this far. 
  here's mine; it's fully backwards compatible, can go right into 2.6, 
and can be incrementally improved in future releases:

    1) add a pathname wrapper to "os.path", which lets you do basic
       path "algebra".  this should probably be a subclass of unicode,
       and should *only* contain operations on names.

    2) make selected "shutil" operations available via the "os" name-
       space; the old POSIX API vs. POSIX SHELL distinction is pretty
       irrelevant.  also make the os.path predicates available via the
       "os" namespace.

this gives a very simple conceptual model for the user; to manipulate 
path *names*, use "os.path.<op>(string)" functions or the "<path>" 
wrapper.  to manipulate *objects* identified by a path, given either as 
a string or a path wrapper, use "os.<op>(path)".  this can be taught in 
less than a minute.

</F>