[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: path name issues

[Jack Jansen]

On 2 Apr 2004, at 01:44, C Smith wrote:
> Well...here's where I go back to the original post.  EasyDialogs gives 
> back unix type paths but macpath deals with colons.
>
> [break to learn what is actually getting loaded that lets os.path work 
> properly when it is (I thought) loading macpath for me]
>
> OK, I'll spare the reader the discovery that I now realize that I have 
> to pay attention to the fact that I am in darwin (something I ignore 
> for the most part, pretending that I'm just working on a nice Mac 
> system). So I really shouldn't be loading macpath because I'm not in 
> "mac mode"  when I'm running MacPython 2.3 under OS X.  Instead I 
> should just load os and use os.path (which will handle everything that 
> I was trying to do in macpath.

Aha, now I see the confusion. ntpath/posixpath/macpath have been in 
Python since before 1.0, and it has never really been a problem since 
people knew they were on nt, posix or a mac. Only now is it starting to 
be a problem because people who have a Macintosh have the absolutely 
silly idea that they're on a mac:-)

> OK, here's a plea/suggestion:
>
> Could the modules like macpath and macurl2path (and others) that 
> really shouldn't be loaded directly (because a master-loader like os 
> or urllib is doing the decision of which *path should be loaded) be 
> put/buried in a folder like 'lib_support'?  This could include other 
> files like ntpath, etc..., too.

I don't think this is an option, because lots of software that is out 
there that uses those modules directly does so explicitly to do 
cross-platform pathname things.

What you could do is check that this isn't mentioned in the 
documentation (assuming you haven't read that already:-), and if it 
isn't or if you feel it merits better treatment add a sourceforge bug 
report to that effect. I'll add a quick note to the FAQ, in the mean 
time.
--
Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
Goldman