[Python-Dev] Dropping init.py requirement for subpackages (original) (raw)

André Malo nd at perlig.de
Wed Apr 26 20:04:33 CEST 2006

On 4/26/06, André Malo <nd at perlig.de> wrote: > * Guido van Rossum wrote: > > So I have a very simple proposal: keep the init.py requirement > > for top-level pacakages, but drop it for subpackages. This should be > > a small change. I'm hesitant to propose anything new for Python > > 2.5, so I'm proposing it for 2.6; if Neal and Anthony think this > > would be okay to add to 2.5, they can do so. > > Not that it would count in any way, but I'd prefer to keep it. How > would I mark a subdirectory as "not-a-package" otherwise?

What's the use case for that? Have you run into this requirement? And even if you did, was there a requirement that the subdirectory's name be the same as a standard library module? If the subdirectory's name is not constrained, the easiest way to mark it as a non-package is to put a hyphen or dot in its name; if you can't do that, at least name it something that you don't need to import.

Actually I have no problems with the change from inside python, but from the POV of tools, which walk through the directories, collecting/separating python packages and/or supplemental data directories. It's an explicit vs. implicit issue, where implicit would mean "kind of heuristics" from now on. IMHO it's going to break existing stuff [1] and should at least not be done in such a rush.

nd

[1] Well, it does break some of mine ;-)

Da fällt mir ein, wieso gibt es eigentlich in Unicode kein "i" mit einem Herzchen als Tüpfelchen? Das wär sooo süüss!

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