[Python-Dev] Require loaders set __package__ and __loader__

[Guido van Rossum]

On Sat, Apr 14, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> Am 15.04.2012 00:56, schrieb Guido van Rossum:
>> Well, if it's a real file, and you need a stream, that's efficient,
>> and if you need the data, you can read it. But if it comes from a
>> loader, and you need a stream, you'd have to wrap it in a StringIO
>> instance. So having two APIs, one to get a stream, and one to get the
>> data, allows the implementation to be more optimal -- it would be bad
>> to wrap a StringIO instance around data only so you can read the data
>> from the stream again...
>
> We need a third way to access a file. The two methods get_data() and
> get_stream() aren't sufficient for libraries that need a read file that
> lives on the file system. In order to have real files the loader (or
> some other abstraction layer) needs to create a temporary directory for
> the current process and clean it up when the process ends. The file is
> saved to the temporary directory the first time it's accessed.

Hm... Can you give an example of a library that needs a real file?
That sounds like a poorly designed API.

Perhaps you're talking about APIs that take a filename instead of a
stream? Maybe for those it would be best to start getting serious
about a virtual filesystem... (Sorry, probably python-ideas stuff).

> The get_file() feature has a neat benefit. Since it transparently
> extracts files from the loader, users can ship binary extensions and
> shared libraries (dlls) in a ZIP file and use them without too much hassle.

Yeah, DLLs are about the only example I can think of where even a
virtual filesystem doesn't help...

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)