[Python-Dev] Path PEP: some comments (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sun Feb 5 13:57:41 CET 2006

Phillip J. Eby wrote:

- ctime() is documented to be unportable: it has different semantics on UNIX and Windows. I believe the class should abstract from these details.

Note that this is the opposite of normal Python policy: Python does not attempt to create cross-platform abstractions, but instead chooses to expose platform differences. The Path class shouldn't abstract this any more than the original *path modules do.

I think this is partially due to a misunderstanding, both by Microsoft, and in Python. There is a long-time myth that ctime denotes "creation time", as this is really in-line with mtime and atime.

I think the path module should provide these under a different name: creation_time and status_change_time. Either of these might be absent. ctime should be provided to report whatever ctime used to report in the past (i.e. creation_time on Windows, status_change_time on Unix).

Regards, Martin

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