[Python-Dev] splitext('.cshrc') (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Mar 8 11:53:29 CET 2007

Josiah Carlson schrieb:

Because we should refuse the temptation to guess, what about:

Rename the posix splitext to X (for some X), and offer a function with identical functionality to the posix variant under win32, also available as X for that platform. Rename the (current) win32 splitext to Y (for some Y) and offer a function with identical functionality to the posix platform as name Y. Offer a new splitext that uses X on posix and Y on win32, but causes a DeprecationWarning with pointers to the two renamed functions that are available on both platforms.

See my comment to Andrew. This would cause severe harm: there are many applications of splitext which work just fine and won't see any behavior change; there are those which actually got fixed; and then there are those that break. With the change, you are putting a burden on all three cases, and more so, on the users of the software.

In addition, splitext should not be deprecated. It is a fine function, and I really don't see a conceptual need for two versions of it: you will only ever need the current one.

For people who want the old platform-specific functionality in previous and subsequent Pythons, offer the ability to disable the DeprecationWarning via a module global; at least until the function is removed in some future Python, at which point path.splitext would cause an AttributeError .

That assumes there is a need for the old functionality. I really don't see it (pje claimed he needed it once, but I remain unconvinced, not having seen an actual fragment where the old behavior is helpful).

Regards, Martin

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