[Python-Dev] Release manager pronouncement needed: PEP 302 Fix (original) (raw)

Georg Brandl g.brandl at gmx.net
Thu Jul 27 18:24:15 CEST 2006

Phillip J. Eby wrote:

sys.pathimportercache is quite an internal thing Whose behavior is documented in a PEP.

Correct.

and most code, even import hooks, shouldn't have to deal with it. That doesn't make it unimportant. It's a visible change in specified behavior between Python versions -- precisely the sort of thing that makes people mad at us renegade cowboy Python-dev hackers changing their language for no apparent reason. The strftime thing that recently got hashed to death here was also an "internal thing" which "most code shouldn't have to deal with". This is precisely how these kinds of problems happen. So, this needs to either be documented in the What's New document and PEP 302 at a minimum, or it needs to be reverted, unless somebody wants to bless the feature addition to fix it.

I agree with you (now). ;)

I'm willing to write code that makes it PEP 302 compliant, if the release manager will bless such an addition. But if that's not acceptable, then somebody needs to produce the necessary documentation updates or revert the patch.

A possible third option would be to store the information "this is an invalid path" somewhere else, that is, an internal dictionary only available to import.c.

I will write up docs and update the PEP in any case, if the release manager agrees.

Georg

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list