[Python-Dev] mimetypes and _winreg

[Garth]

Thomas Heller wrote:

>Mike Brown <mike at skew.org> writes:
>
>  
>
>>I thought it would be nice to try to improve the mimetypes module by having 
>>it, on Windows, query the Registry to get the mapping of filename extensions 
>>to media types, since the mimetypes code currently just blindly checks 
>>posix-specific paths for httpd-style mapping files. However, it seems that the 
>>way to get mappings from the Windows registry is excessively slow in Python.
>>
>>I'm told that the reason has to do with the limited subset of APIs that are 
>>exposed in the _winreg module. I think it is that EnumKey(key, index) is 
>>querying for the entire list of subkeys for the given key every time you call 
>>it. Or something. Whatever the situation is, the code I tried below is way 
>>slower than I think it ought to be.
>>
>>Does anyone have any suggestions (besides "write it in C")? Could _winreg 
>>possibly be improved to provide an iterator or better interface to get the 
>>subkeys? (or certain ones? There are a lot of keys under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, 
>>and I only need the ones that start with a period).
>>    
>>
>
>See this post I made some time ago:
><http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2004-January/042198.html>
>
>  
>
>>Should I file this as a feature request?
>>    
>>
>
>If you still think it should be changed in the core, you should work on
>a patch.
>
>Thomas
>
>  
>
I could file a patch if no one else is looking at it. The solution would 
be to use

RegEnumKeyEx and remove RegQueryInfoKey. This loses compatability with win16 which 
I guess is ok.

Garth