[Python-ideas] pathlib.Path.parts - tuple of path objects rather than strings?

[Paul Moore]

One occasional problem I have with pathlib.Path.parts is that it
returns a tuple of strings. For WindowsPath objects, paths are case
insensitive but strings aren't. So we get the situation that

>>> p1 = pathlib.PureWindowsPath('foo')
>>> p2 = pathlib.PureWindowsPath('FOO')
>>> p1 == p2
True
>>> p1.parts == p2.parts
False

Making p1.parts return a tuple of objects of type p1.__class__ would
address this:

>>> [p1.__class__(p) for p in p1.parts] == [p2.__class__(p) for p in p2.parts]
True

Is this something that's worth changing (pathlib is still provisional,
so the backward compatibility break would technically be allowed, even
if it's not ideal)? Or would an extra property, say p.path_parts that
returned a tuple of path objects be worth considering?

As it is, use of path.parts is a potential source of portability bugs,
where Unix users don't consider the case sensitivity issue. (Heck, as
a Windows user, I almost missed the problem in my implementation of
common_prefix, so it's not just Unix users...)

Paul