[Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] r59947 - in python/trunk:Lib/test/test_structseq.py Misc/NEWS (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Jan 14 16:37:45 CET 2008

On Jan 13, 2008 11:22 PM, "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

> Hmm, is that really necessary? structseq has been in use for quite a > while and this need hasn't come up -- it's been designed to be quite > compatible with tuple except for isinstance checks, and that has > worked well.

In addition, I would like to suggest that the current structseq usage is changed to regular classes (perhaps with slots) in Python 3. structseq was a compatibility mechanism for existing code that assumes the things returned are tuples, when they are really objects with named fields. So for struct stat and struct tm in particular, I think the indexed access should be removed in Python 3. Whether then structseq needs to be preserved at all, I don't know.

There seems to be a use case for it still, otherwise collections.namedtuple wouldn't be added to 2.6, right? I agree that it's time to clean up the tuple-ness of the stat and tm structures (especially since they both may have "hidden" fields that are not accessible via the tuple structure). And I see no need for the new sys.flags object to be a tuple at all.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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