PEP on path module for standard library

[George Sakkis]

"Duncan Booth" <duncan.booth at invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Personally I think the concept of a specific path type is a good one, but
> subclassing string just cries out to me as the wrong thing to do. In other
> words, to me a path represents something in a filesystem, the fact that it
> has one, or indeed several string representations does not mean that the
> path itself is simply a more specific type of string.
>
> You should need an explicit call to convert a path to a string and that
> forces you when passing the path to something that requires a string to
> think whether you wanted the string relative, absolute, UNC, uri etc.

First off, I find this is a relatively small detail overall, that is, regardless of whether path
subclasses string or not, its addition in the standard library will be a step forward. Havind said
that, I think the choice between subclassing or not is going to be a practicality-vs-purity
decision. You're right, conceptually a path HAS_A string description, not IS_A string, so from a
pure OO point of view, it should not inherit string. OTOH, people in favor of the subclassing point
out the convenience for many (or most) common cases. It's a tradeoff, so arguments for both cases
should be discussed.

George