[Python-Dev] posixpath.ismount() on non-posix systems

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Jack Jansen writes:
 > I've just filed bug #776207: test_posixpath fails on MacOS9. The
 > problem is that it expects posixpath.ismount('/') to return
 > true. But on OS9 it returns false. I'm unsure as to the correct
 > behaviour of this on non-posix systems, does anyone have a
 > suggestion? How does it behave on Windows? Should test_posixpath
 > maybe only run some of the tests on non-posix systems?

There are two groups of functions in the *path module implementations:
what I call "path algebra" functions, that only implement string
operations specific to paths in the native syntax of the various
platforms, and functions that have to care about the system they're
running on, and understand the relevant set of filesystem semantics.

I practice, it's really convenient to keep these together, but the
tests should probably be re-examined.  Tests of pure string operations
should be run regardless of the platform on which the tests are
running, and tests of functions that care about the host platform
should only be run on the appropriate platforms.

posixpath.ismount() should definately not be getting run on non-posix
platforms.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>
PythonLabs at Zope Corporation