[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] Patch for an initial support of bytes filename in Python3

[Guido van Rossum]

On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Bill Janssen <janssen at parc.com> wrote:
> Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 8:47 AM, Bill Janssen <janssen at parc.com> wrote:
>> > Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at haypocalc.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >>  - listdir(unicode) -> only unicode, *skip* invalid filenames
>> >>    (as asked by Guido)
>> >
>> > Is there an option listdir(bytes) which will return *all* filenames (as
>> > byte sequences)?  Otherwise, this seems troubling to me; *something*
>> > should be returned for filenames which can't be represented, even if
>> > it's only None.
>>
>> Yes, os.listdir() becomes polymorphic -- if you pass it a pathname in
>> bytes the output is in bytes and it will return everything exactly as
>> the underlying syscall returns it to you.
>
> What about everything else?  For instance, if I call
> os.path.join(<bytes>, <bytes>), I presume I get back a <bytes> which can
> be passed to os.listdir() to retrieve the contents of that directory.

Yeah, Victor's code at http://bugs.python.org/issue3187 (file
python3_bytes_filename.patch) does this. More needs to be done but
it's a start.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)