[Python-Dev] PyTypeObject type names in Modules/ (original) (raw)

Benjamin Peterson benjamin at python.org
Tue Jan 1 17:15:22 CET 2013

2013/1/1 Eli Bendersky <eliben at gmail.com>:

Hello and happy 2013,

Something I noticed earlier today is that some C versions of stdlib modules define their name similarly to the Python version in their PyTypeObject. Some examples: Decimal, xml.etree's Element. Others prepend an understore, like pickle.Pickler and many others. What are the tradeoffs involved in this choice? Is there a "right" thing for types that are supposed to be compatible (i.e. the C extension, where available, replaces the Python implementation seamlessly)? I can think of some meanings for pickling. Unpickling looks at the class name to figure out how to unpickle a user-defined object, so this can affect the pickle/unpickle compatibility between the C and Python versions. What else?

I don't it's terribly important except if the object from the C module is directly exposed through the API it's nicer if it's name doesn't have a leading underscore.

-- Regards, Benjamin

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list