[Python-Dev] Proposal to revert r54204 (splitext change) (original) (raw)

Mike Klaas mike.klaas at gmail.com
Thu Mar 15 23:09:04 CET 2007

On 3/15/07, Mike Krell <mbk.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

Here is a point of confusion. Bear in mind I'm running this under windows, so explorer happily reports that ".emacs" has a type of "emacs". (In windows, file types are registered in the system based on the extension -- all the characters following the last dot. An unregistered extension is listed as its own type. Thus files ending in .txt are listed as type "Text Document", but files ending in ".emacs" are listed as type "emacs" because it's an unregistered extension.)

Unix-derived files prepended with a dot (like .emacs) are not meant to be interpreted as a "file type". It may be useful on occasion when using windows, but it certainly is not the intent of a dotfile.

The following files reside in my /tmp: .X0-lock .X100-lock .X101-lock .X102-lock .X103-lock .X104-lock .X105-lock .X106-lock .X11-unix .X99-lock

...which are certainly not all unnamed files of different type.

I often sort files in the explorer based on type, and I want a file and all its backups to appear next to each other in such a sorted list. That's exactly why I rename the files the way I do. Thus, ".1.emacs" is what I want, and ".emacs.1" is a markedly inferior and unacceptable alternative. That's what I'm referring to by extension preservation.

Unacceptable? You code fails in (ISTM) the more common case of an extensionless file.

-Mike

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list