File names with slashes [was Re: error in os.chdir]

Steven D'Aprano steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info
Thu Jul 5 02:50:09 EDT 2018


On Thu, 05 Jul 2018 00:56:22 +0300, Mikhail V wrote:

> for the user it is most important to
> *see* and copy-paste the path string exactly as it is displayed
> everywhere else on windows.

So in Windows, you see:

    dir directory\file.pdf

so in Python, we have to use exactly the same path with absolutely no 
changes:

    open(directory\file.pdf, 'r')

In Explorer and the open-file dialog of most applications, they will see 
paths like this:

    directory\file name with spaces


with the extension (.jpg, .pdf, .docx etc) suppressed. So by your 
argument, Python needs to accept strings without quotes:

    open(directory\file name with spaces, 'r')

and guess which extension you mean.

That would be fun to watch in action.

Python programmers on Macs will see lots of file paths that display with 
colons, like this:

    directory:file.txt

and mentally translate it to have a forward slash. Linux programmers will 
see paths with spaces and other metacharacters escaped:

    directory/file\ name\ with\ spaces.txt

and mentally translate it to remove the backslashes. If they're not 
already doing this, they'll surely have to do it soon, when unused 
backslash escapes become an error.

https://bugs.python.org/issue32912


Do you believe Python programmers on Windows are especially dumber than 
Python programmers on Macs and Linux? I don't, but you seem to want to 
coddle them and protect them from having to think about what they're 
doing. I think that's patronising of your fellow Windows users.


I'm reminded of a quote by the late Terry Pratchett, an English author, 
talking about his experience publishing books in the US. If I remember 
correctly, he said that American readers aren't dumb, but American 
publishers are convinced that they are.



-- 
Steven D'Aprano
"Ever since I learned about confirmation bias, I've been seeing
it everywhere." -- Jon Ronson




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