[Python-Dev] pkgutil, pkg_resource and Python 3.0 name space packages

[Christian Heimes]

Hello!

We are discussing name space packages on the stdlib reorg list. For
Python 3.0 we plan to organize the packages by purpose, e.g. put all
database related packages like sqlite and shelve in a 'databases' name
space.

Of course we want to have the name spaces extensible by 3rd party
software. The Python world as currently two ways to create extensible
name space packages: pkgutil and pkg_resource.

pkgutil is part of Python 2.5. pkg_resource is scheduled for Python 2.6
and 3.0 in PEP 365 [1]. The PEP hasn't been accepted yet.

Questions:

* PJE: Is pkg_resource ready for Python 2.6 and 3.0?

* GvR: Are you going to accept Phillip's PEP?

* PJE: Does pkg_resource have an easy way to overwrite a package in a
name space package? E.g. an user wants to overwrite Python's
databases.sqlite with a newer version of sqlite. Can he simply do it by
inserting a package into sys.path before Lib/ ?

Christian

[1] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0365/