[Python-Dev] Virtual filesystem APIs

[Jean-Claude Wippler]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
>
[... horrors of cross-OS mounts and ":\/" separators ...]

I agree, this has some very hairy sides to it.  But VFS is really more
about mounting non-FS things in a "root" FS (presumably the real one).

> On the other hand the VFS concept could be used as a totally different
> solution to the sys.importers vs. sys.path

Heck, I'll be the "enfant terrible" once more: yes, and this stuff could
well be implemented generically across scripting languages.  Of course
the act of "importing" is a very Pythonic issue - but FS/VFS traversal
and the actual shared library load need not be.  Anyway, enough of that.

> Take for example the Windows registry -- looks a lot like a 
> filesystem, doesn't it?  Yet it has one fundamental property that a
> typical FS doesn't: directory nodes can have data *and* children...

What you're saying is that dir = set-of-subdirs + set-of-files, and that
this is a more general requirement than plain FS's.  Doesn't that simply
mean that the more general model is needed as basis to handle both?

> Trees are a universal concept, but code sharing is still elusive...

Ah, but think of the implications: archives, networks, XML, the world!

-- Jean-Claude