[Python-Dev] When should pathlib stop being provisional? (original) (raw)

Ethan Furman ethan at stoneleaf.us
Wed Apr 6 16:20:59 EDT 2016

On 04/06/2016 02:41 AM, Antoine Pitrou wrote:

On a concrete point, inheriting str would make the API a horrible, confusing, dangerous mess missing regular string semantics (concatenation with +, for example, or indexing) with path-specific semantics and various grey areas (should .split() have path semantics or str semantics? what is the rule and how are people supposed to remember it?).

While I agree in principle..

(of course, for PHP or Javascript programmers it may not sound like a problem. Let "adding" two IP addresses return the concatenation of their string representations...)

Like if had a subnet of '192.168' and a host of '.11.16' and adding them together gave you '192.168.11.16'? (yeah, a bit weak)

Or, more appropriately: a path of

'/home/ethan/mystuff' + '_bak'

so I can make a copy? Actually, that would be

stuff = pathlib.Path('/home/ethan/mystuff') # no issue here backup_stuff = stuff.with_name(stuff.name + '_bak') # eww

Sure, you can make the argument that with_suffix('.bak') is cleaner, but it is not up to the stdlib to micromanage my code.

Oh, and I do not consort with PHP, and only do so with Javascript when forced.

-- Ethan

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