[Python-Dev] Updates to PEP 471, the os.scandir() proposal (original) (raw)

Tim Delaney timothy.c.delaney at gmail.com
Thu Jul 10 02:58:57 CEST 2014

On 10 July 2014 10:23, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:

2014-07-09 17:26 GMT+02:00 Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com>: > On 9 July 2014 16:05, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote: >> The PEP says that DirEntry should mimic pathlib.Path, so I think that >> DirEntry.isdir() should work as os.path.isir(): if the entry is a >> symbolic link, you should follow the symlink to get the status of the >> linked file with os.stat(). > > (...) > As a Windows user with only a superficial understanding of how > symlinks should behave, (...)

FYI Windows also supports symbolic links since Windows Vista. The feature is unknown because it is restricted to the administrator account. Try the "mklink" command in a terminal (cmd.exe) ;-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFSsymboliclink ... To be honest, I never created a symlink on Windows. But since it is supported, you need to know it to write correctly your Windows code.

Personally, I create them all the time on Windows - mainly via the Link Shell Extension < http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html>. It's the easiest way to ensure that my directory structures are as I want them whilst not worrying about where the files really are e.g. code on SSD, GB+-sized data files on rusty metal, symlinks makes it look like it's the same directory structure. Same thing can be done with junctions if you're only dealing with directories, but symlinks work with files as well.

I work cross-platform, and have a mild preference for option #2 with similar semantics on all platforms.

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