[Python-Dev] request._parse (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Sat Feb 23 22:50:16 CET 2013

On 2/23/2013 2:36 PM, Demian Brecht wrote:

Hope this question belongs here and not in python-ideas, but I'm curious about parse in the Request object. Specifically, why it was decided to write a custom parse function when the likes or urlparse or urlsplit do essentially the same thing.

urllib.parse contains urlparse, urlsplit, splittype, splithost, and other utility functions. urllib.request imports many, including those four. Request._parse sequentially uses splittype and splithost, raising if splittype fails. So it seems to me that it does both less and more that the more general functions. Since urlparse is used four other places in the module and urlsplit once, I would start with the assumption that either would have been here if it were the best and easiest.

Doesn't really seem DRY to me.

Nearly all the work in _parse is done by splittype, splithost, and unquote, which is DRY as far as this function is concerned. The rest of the code is assignment, two ifs, and a raise.

If you want to be helpful, leave _parse along and find a real bug to work on ;-). There are several urllib bug issues. Or check out the code coverage of some test module (see devguide), and see if more tests are needed.

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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