[Python-Dev] Criticism of execfile() removal in Python3 (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Tue Jun 10 15:11:18 CEST 2014

On 10 June 2014 23:05, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jun 2014 19:07:40 +1000, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

I believe it's a space/speed trade-off, so I'd be surprised if it made sense for CPython in general. There are also some behavioural differences when it comes to handling syntax errors.

Now that I think about the idea a bit more, if the MicroPython folks can get a low memory usage incremental file execution model working, the semantic differences mean it would likely make the most sense as a separate API in runpy, rather than as an implicit change to runpath. If it is a separate API, it seems like there's no reason it couldn't be contributed back to CPython. There might be other contexts in which low memory would be the right tradeoff. Although, if key bits end up working at the C level, "contributing back" might require writing separate C for CPython, so that might not happen.

Yeah, as a separate API it could make sense in CPython - I just didn't go back and revise the first paragraph after writing the second one :)

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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