[Python-Dev] pathlib - current status of discussions

[Nick Coghlan]

On 12 April 2016 at 07:58, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> Sticking points:
> ---------------
>
> Do we allow bytes to be returned from os.fspath()?  If yes, then do we allow
> bytes from __fspath__()?

I've come around to the point of view that allowing both str and
bytes-like objects to pass through unchanged makes sense, with the
rationale being the one someone mentioned regarding ease-of-use in
os.path.

Consider os.path.join: with a permissive os.fspath, the necessary
update should just be to introduce "map(os.fspath, args)" (or its C
equivalent), and then continue with the existing bytes vs str handling
logic.

Functions consuming os.fspath can then decide on a case-by-case basis
how they want to handle binary paths: either use them as is (which
will usually work on mostly-ASCII systems), convert them to text with
os.fsdecode (which will usually work on *nix systems), or disallow
them entirely (which would probably only be appropriate for libraries
that wanted to ensure support for non-ASCII paths on Windows systems).

That then cascades into the other open questions mentioned:

- permitted return types for both fspath and __fspath__ would be (str, bytes)
- the names would be fspath and __fspath__, since the result may be
either a path name as text, or an encoded path name as bytes

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia