path module

[Ian Bicking]

On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 11:41, holger krekel wrote:
> Yes, i think adding platform specific methods to a Path object makes sense.  
> A friend and me started working on (local and subversion) Path 
> implementations last week.  Currently a Path instance provides 
> these "path-taking" methods 
> 
>     open  
>     read
>     write
>     visit  (a recursive walker)
>     listdir
>     stat
>     load/save (unpickle/pickle object)
>     setmtime  (set modification time, uses os.utime)

I like read and write too -- I do:

f = open(filename)
contents = f.read()
f.close()

All the time (when I'm uninterested in streaming or performance, which
is most of the time I deal with files).  Or just open(filename).read()
and let garbage collection fix it up, even if it seems a little messy. 
A single method to encapsulate that would be nice, and of course write
gives symmetry.  Hmmm... Jason's distinguishes bytes (binary) and text
(which is potentially encoded).  I kind of like that distinction.

Jason had walkers both for all files, just non-directory files, and
directory files.  This seems useful to me, and by making it explicit I
might just start distinguishing text from binary (which I don't now
because I am forgetful).  And a globbing walker, though I don't know how
much of an advantage that would be over list comprehension.  Actually,
all his walkers have a globbing option.

> apart from all the os.path.* stuff like 'exists', 'dirname' etc.  
> Providing these "path-taking" methods on the Path object is very important 
> because otherwise you'll have to convert back and fro for using those
> os.* and os.path.* or builtin methods (which is evil).  

dirname is a good name, since it should return a path object, not a
"name" (which to me implies a string).  I think Jason's module uses a
parent attribute, though it also supports dirname(), and a name
attribute instead of basename() (though that does not return a path
object).  And things like dirname make less sense in some non-path
situations, like a URL.  Probably not too much renaming should occur,
but at least a little may be appropriate.

  Ian