[Python-Dev] Convention on functions that shadow existing stdlib functions

[Eli Bendersky]

Some background: I'm working (on and off) on issue 11015 - documenting
the public functions in test.support

Some of the functions in test.support (for example unlink, rmtree)
simply shadow existing & popular stdlib functions, with the aim of
swallowing the exceptions these may throw. This is confusing, IMHO.
For example, grepping 'unlink' on Lib/test/test_*.py files doesn't say
much about which unlink is being used.

A couple of options to handle this are:

1. Remove these functions altogether, trying to use existing
constructs (such as the ignore_errors parameter in rmtree).
2. Adapt a naming convention for such functions, for instance
rmtree_silent and unlink_silent (or a similar convention, if one
exists)

Opinions?

Eli