PEP on path module for standard library

[Reinhold Birkenfeld]

Michael Hoffman wrote:
> Reinhold Birkenfeld wrote:
>> FYI: I modified the path module a bit so that it fits many of the suggestions
>> from python-dev, and put the result in the Python CVS tree under
>> nondist/sandbox/path.
>> 
>> Most prominent change is that it doesn't inherit from str/unicode anymore.
>> I found this distinction important, because as a str subclass the Path object
>> has many methods that don't make sense for it.
> 
> Having path descend from str/unicode is extremely useful since I can 
> then pass a path object to any function someone else wrote without 
> having to worry about whether they were checking for basestring. I think 
> there is a widely used pattern of accepting either a basestring[1] or a 
> file-like object as a function argument, and using isinstance() to 
> figure out which it is.

Where do you see that pattern? IIRC it's not in the stdlib.

> What do you gain from removing these methods? A smaller dir()?

It made sense to me at the time I changed this, although at the moment
I can't exactly recall the reasons.

Probably as Terry said: a path is both a list and a string.

Reinhold