[New-bugs-announce] [issue42778] Add follow_symlinks=True to {os.path, Path}.samefile

[Tom Hale]

New submission from Tom Hale <tom at hale.ee>:

The os.path and Path implementations of samefile() do not allow comparisons of symbolic links:

% mkdir empty && chdir empty
% ln -s non-existant broken
% ln broken lnbroken
% ls -i # Show inode numbers
19325632 broken@  19325632 lnbroken@
% Yup, they are the same file... but...
% python -c 'import os; print(os.path.samefile("lnbroken", "broken", follow_symlinks=False))'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: samefile() got an unexpected keyword argument 'follow_symlinks'
% python -c 'import os; print(os.path.samefile("lnbroken", "broken"))'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/genericpath.py", line 100, in samefile
    s1 = os.stat(f1)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'lnbroken'
%

Both samefile()s use os.stat under the hood, but neither allow setting  os.stat()'s `follow_symlinks` parameter.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.stat

https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.path.html#os.path.samefile

https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.samefile

----------
components: Library (Lib)
messages: 383965
nosy: Tom Hale
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Add follow_symlinks=True to {os.path,Path}.samefile
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue42778>
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