[Python-Dev] Bytes path support

[Nick Coghlan]

On 21 August 2014 09:33, Ethan Furman <ethan at stoneleaf.us> wrote:
> On 08/20/2014 03:31 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
>> On 21 Aug 2014 08:19, "Greg Ewing" <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
>> <mailto:greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think if you want low-level features (such as unconverted bytes paths
>>>> under POSIX), it is reasonable to point you to low-level APIs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The problem with scandir() in particular is that there is
>>> currently *no* low-level API exposed that gives the same
>>> functionality.
>>>
>>> If scandir() is not to support bytes paths, I'd suggest
>>> exposing the opendir() and readdir() system calls with
>>> bytes path support.
>>
>>
>> scandir is low level (the entire os module is low level). In fact, aside
>> from pathlib, I'd consider pretty much every
>> API we have that deals with paths to be low level - that's a large part of
>> the reason we needed pathlib!
>
>
> If scandir is low-level, and the low-level API's are the ones that should
> support bytes paths, then scandir should support bytes paths.
>
> Is that what you meant to say?

Yes. The discussions around PEP 471 *deferred* discussions of bytes
and file descriptor support to their own RFEs (not needing a PEP),
they didn't decide definitively not to support them. So Serhiy's
thread is entirely pertinent to that question.

Note that adding bytes support still *should not* hold up the initial
PEP 471 implementation - it should be done as a follow on RFE.

Cheers,
Nick.


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