[Python-Dev] "setuptools has divided the Python community"

[P.J. Eby]

At 11:27 PM 3/26/2009 +0000, Paul Moore wrote:
>What I'd really like is essentially some form of "virtual filesystem"
>access to stuff addressed relative to a Python package name,

Note that relative to a *Python package name* isn't quite as useful, 
due to namespace packages.  To be unambiguous as to the targeted 
resource, one needs to be able to reference a specific project, and 
that requires you to go off the name of a module *within* a 
package.  For example, 'zope.somemodule' rather than just 'zope'.  To 
put it another way, you don't want to use a module that comes from an 
__init__.py as your origin point, but rather, some other .py file 
within the package.  Then you can talk to that module's loader 
without fear of ambiguity.


>  rather
>than to a filesystem path. How much filesystem functionality is
>required is somewhat up for debate, but the basic listdir, get
>(text/binary) contents, open (text/binary) stream would be a good
>start (as Guido pointed out).

"isdir" and "exists" would also be nice; pkg_resources provides 
those, plus listdir and string/stream.