[Python-Dev] Is adding support for os.PathLike an enhancement or bugfix?

[Terry Reedy]

On 5/3/2017 2:15 PM, Brett Cannon wrote:
> My allergies have hit me hard so I'm not thinking at full capacity, but 
> did we ever decide if supporting os.PathLike in the stdlib was viewed as 
> an enhancement or bugfix? Specifically I'm thinking of 
> https://bugs.python.org/issue30218 for adding support to 
> shutil.unpack_archive() and whether it should be backported to 3.6.

On the face of it, that particular issue looks like an enhancement that 
should have gone into 3.6 (if ever), but did not.  I notice that
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0519/#implementation
did not include "Update shutil", so it was not done, at least not 
completely.

Was shutil updated at all?  Is unpack_archive the only shutil function 
not updated?  If so, I could see the omission as a bug.

If the patch for 30218 were applied in 3.6, would the doc
https://docs.python.org/3/library/shutil.html#shutil.unpack_archive
need to be changed, with a note "Added in 3.6.2: filename can be any 
pathlike object"?  If so, it is an enhancement.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy