[Python-Dev] PEP 408 -- Standard library preview package (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Sat Jan 28 03:05:23 CET 2012

On 27/01/2012 20:48, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

Eli Bendersky wrote:

try: from preview import thing except ImportError: import thing

So no need to target a very specific version of Python.

Yep, this is what I had in mind. And it appeared too trivial to place it in the PEP. Trivial and wrong. Since thing and preview.thing may have subtle, or major, API differences, how do you use it? No, potentially wrong in cases where the APIs are different. Even with the try...except ImportError dance around StringIO / cStringIO there are some API differences. But for a lot of use cases it works fine (simplejson and json aren't identical, but it works for most people).

Michael

try: result = thing.foo(a, b, c) + thing.bar(x) except AttributeError: # Must be the preview version result = thing.foobar(a, c, b, x)

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