[Python-ideas] Small enhancement to os.path.splitext

[Mike Meyer]

On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:18:41 +1200
Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:

> Paul Moore wrote:
> 
> > As Mike Meyer explained, whether file foo.C "has extension .c" depends
> > (as far as the user is concerned) on whether the filesystem it's on is
> > case sensitive.
> 
> I don't think that's really true. It's common to find,
> e.g., files ending with .jpg, .JPG, or other variations on
> a case-sensitive filesystem that got there by being copied
> from a case-insensitive one, or simply created by people
> using tools that don't care about the case of the extension.

That's probably true for the vast majority of extensions, but I chose
.C vs. .c for a reason - gcc thinks they are different:

bhuda% cmp bunny.c bunny.C
bhuda% file bunny.?
bunny.C: ASCII C program text
bunny.c: ASCII C program text
bhuda% gcc bunny.c
bhuda% g++ bunny.c
bunny.c: In function 'int main(int, char**)':
bunny.c:25: error: 'fork' was not declared in this scope
bunny.c:26: error: 'wait' was not declared in this scope
bhuda% gcc bunny.C
bunny.C: In function 'int main(int, char**)':
bunny.C:25: error: 'fork' was not declared in this scope
bunny.C:26: error: 'wait' was not declared in this scope
bhuda% 

> Seems to me the best thing to do is always compare extensions
> case-insensitively unless you have a specific reason to do
> otherwise. So I would recommend that any proposed hasextension()
> function should be case-insensitive by default.

Reasonable, but if you have a way to make it case-sensitive, you're
back where we started from: needing to figure out whether the files in
question care about case. Given the number of options here - including
that the file may not exist yet, and ditto for the file system it's
going to be on - possibly the solution is to leave off that option,
and document that this case has to be dealt with by the caller.


     <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.

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