[Python-Dev] stat module in C -- what to do with stat.py?

[Thomas Wouters]

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 8:01 AM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 10:14 AM, Eric V. Smith <eric at trueblade.com>wrote:
>
>> On 6/20/2013 9:40 AM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
>> > On 20 June 2013 23:29, Christian Heimes <christian at python.org> wrote:
>> >> Am 20.06.2013 15:21, schrieb Florent:
>> >>> we already have "_pyio.py", we could have "_pystat.py".
>> >>
>> >> Works for me.
>> >
>> > I suggest following the guidelines in PEP 399 for cross implementation
>> > compatibility of the standard library:
>> > http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0399/#details
>> >
>> > 1. Keep stat.py
>> > 2. Make the C version "_stat"
>> > 3. Add the following to the end of stat.py:
>> >
>> >     try:
>> >         from _stat import *
>> >     except ImportError:
>> >         pass
>> >
>> > Run the tests with and without the C module in the test suite (again,
>> > as per PEP 399).
>>
>> Agreed with the above.
>>
>> But isn't the real problem with this module in Python the fact that the
>> constants might be wrong? I'm not sure what, if anything, we can do
>> about that.
>>
>
> There isn't anything we can do beyond at least trying to provide
> reasonable defaults when something better isn't available (which is what
> the stats module has done all this time). It might make testing difficult
> for the Python code when the C code has the right values, but I don't think
> it's necessarily worth tossing out the Python code as backup.
>

If the .py file is going to be wrong or incomplete, why would we want to
keep it -- or use it as fallback -- at all? If we're dead set on having a
.py file instead of requiring it to be part of the interpreter (whichever
that is, however it was built), it should be generated as part of the build
process. Personally, I don't see the value in it; other implementations
will need to do *something* special to use it anyway.

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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