[Python-Dev] Path PEP: some comments

[Giovanni Bajo]

On Sun, February 5, 2006 13:57, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

> I think the path module should provide these under a different name:
> creation_time and status_change_time. Either of these might be absent.

+1. This is exactly what I proposed, in fact.


> ctime should be provided to report whatever ctime used to report in
> the past (i.e. creation_time on Windows, status_change_time on Unix).

As I stated in my mail, I don't agree that there needs to be such a strict
compatibility between methods in the new Path class and functions in the
old os.path (or other) modules. Some consistency will ease the transition
of course, but there is absolutely no need to provide a 1:1 mapping. Old
code will continue to work, and new code might adapt to a new (possibly)
better API. Given the confusion with 'ctime', I don't think that providing
it in the new Path class would be a good move. It's better to force people
to explicitally name what they're asking for (either creation_time or
status_change_time).

In other words, if there are mistakes in the old API, this is the time to
fix them. Why should we carry them over to a new API?

Giovanni Bajo