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

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Wed Apr 26 20:36:13 CEST 2006

On 4/26/06, André Malo <nd at perlig.de> wrote:

* Guido van Rossum wrote:

> 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 ;-)

Can you elaborate? You could always keep the init.py files, you know...

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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