[Python-Dev] Require loaders set package and loader (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Sun Apr 15 13:10:53 CEST 2012

On Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 12:59 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

Hm... Can you give an example of a library that needs a real file? That sounds like a poorly designed API.

If you're invoking a separate utility (e.g. via it's command line interface), you may need a real filesystem path that you can pass along.

The getfile() feature has a neat benefit. Since it transparently extracts files from the loader, users can ship binary extensions and shared libraries (dlls) in a ZIP file and use them without too much hassle. Yeah, DLLs are about the only example I can think of where even a virtual filesystem doesn't help...

An important example, though. However, I still don't believe it is something we should necessarily be rushing into implementing in the standard library in the same release that finally completes the conversion started so long ago with PEP 302.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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