[Python-Dev] A wart which should have been repaired in 3.0?

Mon Dec 29 00:14:00 CET 2008

>>>>> "skip" == skip <skip at pobox.com> writes:

 Martin> I don't think any change is necessary. os.path.commonprefix
 Martin> works just fine on path components:
 skip> Ummm...
 >>> os.path.commonprefix(["/export/home", "/etc/passwd"])
 '/e'
 skip> I suppose that's correct given the defined behavior of the
 skip> function, but it certainly doesn't seem to be very path-like to
 skip> me.
I should also point out that most people will not have the foresight to use
it the way Martin demonstrated. Documentation or not, I'll be a fair
fraction of all usage assumes the return value represents a valid path.
 Martin> Of course, using it that way would require a library function
 Martin> that reliably splits a path into components; I think one would
 Martin> have to do abspath on arbitrary inputs.
Kinda what I think os.path.split ought to do. Should I tackle that next?
;-)
Skip