[Python-Dev] Path object design

[Georg Brandl]

glyph at divmod.com wrote:
> On 03:14 am, sluggoster at gmail.com wrote:
> 
>  >One thing is sure -- we urgently need something better than os.path.
>  >It functions well but it makes hard-to-read and unpythonic code.
> 
> I'm not so sure.  The need is not any more "urgent" today than it was 5 
> years ago, when os.path was equally "unpythonic" and unreadable.  The 
> problem is real but there is absolutely no reason to hurry to a 
> premature solution.
> 
> I've already recommended Twisted's twisted.python.filepath module as a 
> possible basis for the implementation of this feature.  I'm sorry I 
> don't have the time to pursue that.  I'm also sad that nobody else seems 
> to have noticed.  Twisted's implemenation has an advantage that it 
> doesn't seem that these new proposals do, an advantage I would really 
> like to see in whatever gets seriously considered for adoption:

Looking at 
<http://twistedmatrix.com/documents/current/api/twisted.python.filepath.FilePath.html>,
it seems as if FilePath was made to serve a different purpose than what we're
trying to discuss here:

"""
I am a path on the filesystem that only permits 'downwards' access.

Instantiate me with a pathname (for example, 
FilePath('/home/myuser/public_html')) and I will attempt to only provide access 
to files which reside inside that path. [...]

The correct way to use me is to instantiate me, and then do ALL filesystem 
access through me.
"""

What a successor to os.path needs is not security, it's a better (more pythonic,
if you like) interface to the old functionality.

Georg