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Overview of Problems:
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* Too many methods exported.
* Poor choice of method names.
* Non public classes/methods exported!
* Duplicated functionality.
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Proposed new functionality:
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* New path module will ONLY support one path sep! There is NO reason
to support more than one. When we support more than one path sep we
help to propagate multiplicity.We should only support the slash and
NOT the backslash across ALL OS's since the slash is more widely
accepted. If an OS does not have the capability to support only the
slash then that OS is not worthy of a Python builtin module. The users
of such OS will be responsible for managing their OWN os_legacy.path
module. We are moving forward. Those who wish to wallow in the past
will be left behind.
* Introduce a new method named "partition" which (along with string
splitting methods) will replace the six methods "basename", "dirname",
"split", "splitdrive", "splitunc", "splittext". The method will return
a tuple of the path split into four parts: (drive, path, filename,
extension). This is the ONLY splitting method this module needs. All
other splits can use string methods.
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Expose of the Warts of current module:
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Too many methods
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Follows is a list of what to keep and what to cull:
+ abspath
+ altsep
- basename --> path.partition[-2]
+ commonprefix
+ curdir
+ defpath
+ devnull
- dirname --> os.path.join(drive,path)
+ exists
+ expanduser
+ expandvars
+ extsep
- genericpath --> should be private!
+ getatime
+ getctime
+ getmtime
+ getsize
+ isabs
+ isdir
+ isfile
+ islink
+ ismount
+ join
- lexists --> duplicate!
- normcase --> path = path.lower()
- normpath --> should not need this!
- os --> should be private!
+ pardir
+ pathsep
+ realpath
+ relpath
+ sep
- split --> path.rsplit('/', 1)
- splitdrive --> path.split(':', 1)
- splitext --> path.rsplit('.')
- splitunc --> Unix specific!
- stat --> should be private!
+ supports_unicode_filenames --> windows specific!
- sys --> should be private!
+ walk
- warnings --> should be private!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2. Poor Name Choices:
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* basename --> should be: filename
* split --> split what?
* splitext --> Wow, informative!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3. Non Public Names Exposed!
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* genericpath
* os
* stat
* sys
* warnings
Note: i did not check the Unix version of os.path for this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4. Duplicated functionality.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> os.path.lexists.__doc__
'Test whether a path exists. Returns False for broken symbolic links'
>>> os.path.exists.__doc__
'Test whether a path exists. Returns False for broken symbolic links'
Should have been one method:
>>> os.path.exists(path, ignoreSymLnks=False)
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