[Python-ideas] pathlib.Path should handle Pythonpath or package root

[Nick Coghlan]

On 19 July 2017 at 06:40, George Fischhof <george at fischhof.hu> wrote:
> I think yes ;-)
> I would like to use (or I think it would be good to use) something like
> pathlib.Path(package_root)
> so I could use
>
> importlib.import_module(pathlib.Path(package_root) / plugins / plugin_name)

No, as that's fundamentally incompatible with how Python's import
system works - the filesystem is *a* way of representing package
namespacing, but far from the only way. Managing the import state also
has nothing whatsoever to do with pathlib.

That said, the idea of better encapsulating the import state so we can
more readily have constrained "import engines" *is* a reasonable one,
it just runs into significant practical problems related to the
handling of transitive imports in both Python modules and (especially)
extension modules.

The last serious attempt at pursuing something like that is documented
in PEP 406, "Improved Encapsulation of Import State":
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0406/

Unfortunately, the main outcome of Greg Slodkowicz's GSoC work on the
idea was to conclude that that particular approach wasn't viable due
to the fact that import system plugins at that time were pretty much
required to directly manipulate global state, which ran directly
counter to the goal of encapsulation.

However, we also haven't had anyone seriously revisit the idea since
the updated import plugin API was defined in PEP 451 - that
deliberately moved a lot of the global state management out of the
plugins and into the import system, so it should be more amenable to
an "import engine" style approach to state encapsulation.

Cheers,
Nick.

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