[Python-Dev] Proposed: The Great Argument Clinic Conversion Derby (original) (raw)

Erik Bray erik.m.bray at gmail.com
Mon Jan 6 21:53:58 CET 2014

On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:

Now, properly converting a function to work with Argument Clinic does not change its behavior. Internally, the code performing argument parsing should be nigh-identical; it should call the same PyArgParse function, with the same arguments, and the implementation should perform the same work as a result. The only externally observable change should be that inspect.signature() now produces a valid signature for the builtin; in all other respects Python should be unchanged. No documentation should have to change, no tests should need to be modified, and absolutely no code should be broken as a result. Converting a function to use Argument Clinic should be a blissfully low-risk procedure, and produce a pleasant, easier-to-maintain result.

Hi,

If it goes forward I would be willing to help out with the derby on a few modules. I haven't followed the Argument Clinic arguments closely before now, so I don't know if this question has been addressed. I didn't see it mentioned in the docs anywhere, but will the policy be to prefer renaming existing functions to the names generated by clinic (the "_impl" names) or to override that to keep the existing names?

I ask because some built-in functions are used internally by other built-in functions. I don't know how common this is but, for example, fileio_read calls fileio_readall. So if fileio_readall is renamed to io_FileIO_readall_impl or whatever we need to also go through and fix any references to fileio_readall. Should be easy enough, but I wonder if there are any broader side-effects of this. Might it be safer for the first round to keep the existing function names?

Erik

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