[Python-Dev] PEP 382: Namespace Packages

[P.J. Eby]

At 10:32 AM 4/2/2009 -0500, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>I propose the following PEP for inclusion to Python 3.1.
>Please comment.

An excellent idea.  One thing I am not 100% clear on, is how to get 
additions to sys.path to work correctly with this.  Currently, when 
pkg_resources adds a new egg to sys.path, it uses its existing 
registry of namespace packages in order to locate which packages need 
__path__ fixups.  It seems under this proposal that it would have to 
scan sys.modules for objects with __path__ attributes that are lists 
that begin with a '*', instead...  which is a bit troubling because 
sys.modules doesn't always only contain module objects.  Many major 
frameworks place lazy module objects, and module proxies or wrappers 
of various sorts in there, so scanning through it arbitrarily is not 
really a good idea.

Perhaps we could add something like a sys.namespace_packages that 
would be updated by this mechanism?  Then, pkg_resources could check 
both that and its internal registry to be both backward and forward compatible.

Apart from that, this mechanism sounds great!  I only wish there was 
a way to backport it all the way to 2.3 so I could drop the messy 
bits from setuptools.