[XML-SIG] "xml" package in standard library

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

I've CC'd the XML-SIG list on this; discussion should probably continue on 
python-dev since we're well into the xml package at this point.

On Tuesday 13 December 2005 15:29, Fredrik Lundh wrote:
 > what's the status of PyXML?  is it time to move it over to svn.python.org
 > and bring it up to 1.0 (whatever that would mean?)

I'm not entirely sure myself; I've had no real time to look at it for a while.

I think before we need to worry about PyXML from the perspective of the 
standard library, we need to work out a better way to deal with the "xml" 
package.  Not only is the current state a source of confusion for users, it's 
a problem for testing the standard library if there's also a PyXML installed 
for the same version of Python (the PyXML modules are imported instead of the 
stdlib modules, but the tests for the standard library may reflect fixed 
bugs).  This has bit me a few times.

I'd like to propose that a new package be created in the standard library: 
xmlcore.  This package should contain what's currently in the "xml" package.  
The xml package should be replaced with a single module that's responsible 
for the magic that xml/__init__.py deals with now.  The tests for the xml 
package will be changed to test the xmlcore package.

Advantages:

- People who specifically want the standard library code can get it without
  having PyXML get in the way if installed.

- Existing code using the xml package will continue to work.

Risks:

- Pickles containing classes from the xml package will break if we're not
  really careful.  But I think they're pretty fragile now.

I'll be glad to make these or similar changes if there's concensus on this.


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.   <fdrake at acm.org>