[issue20125] We need a good replacement for direct use of load_module(), post-PEP 451

[Eric Snow]

New submission from Eric Snow:

In issue #19713, it came up that while PEP 451 deprecated Loader.load_module(), it did not provide a suitable replacement for calling it directly.  We've worked around this in the stdlib by making calls to private APIs, but that won't work so well for the community at large.

The importlib._bootstrap._SpecMethods class is one we had considered making public, but decided to defer that decision until people demonstrated an interest/need.

At this point in the 3.4 release cycle I'm not sure how much we can do about it.  Adding something like the following would be easy, but then we'd be stuck indefinitely with an API that we may just deprecate in 3.5 (a one-hit wonder), though that might be the lesser evil.

def load_from_spec(spec):
    _spec = importlib._bootstrap._SpecMethods(spec)
    return _spec.load()

Adding that as a recipe to the load_module() docs wouldn't work too well either, since we'd still be advocating the use of a private API as a workaround.

To be honest, I'll have to defer to Brett, Nick, et al. on this one.  They have the experience to know the best approach to take here.  I just haven't been in the majors long enough.

(Where'd Guido put the keys to that time machine?)

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 207326
nosy: Arfrever, brett.cannon, eric.snow, ncoghlan
priority: high
severity: normal
status: open
title: We need a good replacement for direct use of load_module(), post-PEP 451
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.4

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue20125>
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