[Python-Dev] Function in os module for available disk space, why not?

Dinu Gherman gherman@darwin.in-berlin.de
Mon, 19 Mar 2001 17:06:27 +0100


Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Whine, whine, whine. [...]
> I'm not against adding it, but I'm not particularly motivated 
> to add it myself [...]

Good! After doing a quick research on Google it turns out 
this function is also available on MacOS, as expected, named 
PBHGetVInfo(). See this page for details plus a sample Pascal 
function using it:

  http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/Files/Files-96.html

I'm not sure what else is needed to use it, but at least it's
there and maybe somebody more of a Mac expert than I am could
help out here... I'm going to continue this on c.l.p. in the
original thread... Hey, maybe it is already available in one
of the many mac packages. Well, I'll start some digging...

> I would hope that you agree with me though that the behavior of
> numbers is a lot more fundamental to education than finding out
> available disk space.  The latter is just a system call of use 
> to a small number of professionals.  The former has usability 
> implications for all Python users.

I do agree, sort of, but it appears that often there is much 
more work being spent on fantastic new features, where im-
proving existing ones would also be very beneficial. For me
at least, there is considerable value in a system's consisten-
cy and completeness and not only in its number of features.

Thanks everybody (now that Guido has spoken we have to finish)! 
It was fun! :)

Regards,

Dinu

-- 
Dinu C. Gherman
ReportLab Consultant - http://www.reportlab.com
................................................................
"The only possible values [for quality] are 'excellent' and 'in-
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                    (Kent Beck, "Extreme Programming Explained")