René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"Support for not following symlinks in pathlib.Path.is_dir()","articleBody":"# Feature or enhancement\r\n\r\nAdd a *follow_symlinks* argument to [`pathlib.Path.is_dir()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html#pathlib.Path.is_dir), defaulting to `True`\r\n\r\n# Pitch\r\n\r\nPathlib's `walk()` and `glob()` implementations are built upon `os.scandir()`, which yields `os.DirEntry` objects. The interface for `os.DirEntry` is a rough subset of `pathlib.Path`, including the [`name`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.DirEntry.name) attribute and [`is_dir()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.DirEntry.is_dir) method.\r\n\r\nPathlib only ever calls `os.scandir()` via a private `pathlib.Path._scandir()` method, currently defined as follows:\r\n\r\n```python\r\n    def _scandir(self):\r\n        return os.scandir(self)\r\n```\r\n\r\nIn future I'd like to add a `pathlib.AbstractPath` class with abstract `stat()`, `iterdir()` and `open()` methods. \r\n\r\nThe default implementation of `AbstractPath._scandir()` would use `iterdir()`:\r\n\r\n```python\r\n   def _scandir(self):\r\n       return contextlib.nullcontext(list(self.iterdir()))\r\n```\r\n\r\nNote how it returns `AbstractPath` objects, and not `DirEntry` objects. This exploits the similarities of the `Path` and `DirEntry` APIs.\r\n\r\n... but there's a problem!\r\n\r\nThe `os.DirEntry.is_dir()` method accepts a keyword-only `follow_symlinks` argument. Our globbing implementation requires us to set this argument. But the `Path.is_dir()` method does not accept this argument!\r\n\r\nIf we add a keyword-only *follow_symlinks* argument to `Path.is_dir()`, we make it compatible with `os.DirEntry.is_dir()`, which in turn allows us to build a `glob()` implementation upon user-defined `stat()` and `iterdir()` methods in a future `AbstractPath` class.\r\n\r\n# Previous discussion\r\n\r\nGeneral discussion of `AbstractPath`: https://discuss.python.org/t/make-pathlib-extensible/3428\r\n\r\nWe added a *follow_symlinks* argument to `Path.exists()` in #89769 / #29655.\n\n\u003c!-- gh-linked-prs --\u003e\n### Linked PRs\n* gh-105794\n\u003c!-- /gh-linked-prs --\u003e\n","author":{"url":"https://github.com/barneygale","@type":"Person","name":"barneygale"},"datePublished":"2023-06-14T17:04:20.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":2},"url":"https://github.com/105793/cpython/issues/105793"}