[Python-Dev] Handling of sys.args (Re: User's complaints)

[Nick Coghlan]

Greg Ewing wrote:
> Nick Maclaren wrote:
>> On systems that are not Unix-derived (which, nowadays, are rare),
>> there is commonly no such thing as a program name in the first place.
>> It is possible to get into that state on some Unices - i.e. ones which
>> have a form of exec that takes a file descriptor, inode number or
>> whatever.
> 
> I don't think that applies to the Python args[] though,
> since its args[0] isn't the path of the OS-level
> executable, it's the path of the main Python script.
> 
> But you could still end up without one, if the main
> script comes from somewhere other than a file.

sys.argv[0] can end up being None in Python 2.5  - zipimporter objects don't 
currently expose the info runpy.run_module needs to set __file__ and 
sys.argv[0] correctly, so they'll both end up being None if you use -m to run 
a module from a zipfile.

PEP 302 went a fairly long way towards decoupling imports from the filesystem 
lay out, but it isn't all the way there just yet.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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