1

Hi
this is just a simple idea,
The attribute name exists for Path class, which is a string.
The idea is only to add a aname which would be the equivalent of str(my_path.absolute()), that’s to say the absolute name. the aname word could be apath or full.

I propose this since I don’t find any other convenient way to do it

Jimmy

2

I don’t think we want convenience attributes for all possible Path methods. Is calling str(path.resolve()) really so bad?

3

Yes it is :slight_smile:
I really like pathlib because it’s powerful, easy and straightforward except it.
I find that when you use many absolute path, writing str(path.resolve()) is cumbersome.

By the way I already, use a custom subclass of Path with aname I and find it very useful.

4

I’m intrigued why you’d need many absolute paths in string form though. From my own experience this is not particularly useful except when you need to pass it to a foreign interface (e.g. as arguments to a subprocess). In which case it’s usually better to wrap that foreign call in a Python function that accepts Path, and write the str() transform in that function (once).

1 Like
5

-1 for the idea

2 Likes
6

You need It when working with config files for example, or storing image path in database.

7

I read Pathlib absolute() vs. resolve() and since the way to get an absolute path is not yet so clear, I understand My idea is not so simple it could seem.

8

And to be very specific, you want to use os.fspath() or one of os.fsencode()/os.fsdecode() depending on what you want to get out of the path object and not str() (otherwise you may end up setting a path as None accidentally :wink:).

I’ve opened Issue 39090: Document various options for getting the absolute path from pathlib.Path objects - Python tracker to track updating the docs as it’s as settled as it’s going to be, someone just needs to write it out so it’s a bit clearer for everyone how surprising complicated the situation is.

9

Thanks for pointing out os.fspath(). Could you elaborate on its use? Without already knowing what it does and why, I found the documentation not very illuminating. After thinking some time about it I assume you mean something like this:

import os
import pathlib
import typing

def command1(path_or_none: typing.Optional[pathlib.Path]) -> str:
    # Problem: This would be "cmd None" instead of "cmd ".
    return f"cmd {path_or_none}"

def command2(path_or_none: typing.Optional[pathlib.Path]) -> str:
    # Problem: This would be "cmd None" instead of "cmd ".
    return "cmd " + str(path_or_none)

def command3(path_or_none: typing.Optional[pathlib.Path]) -> str:
    # No problem. Verbose.
    if path_or_none is None 
        return "cmd"
    return f"cmd {path_or_none}" 

def command4(path_or_none: typing.Optional[pathlib.Path]) -> str:
    # No problem. Requires arcane knowledge.
    return "cmd " + os.fspath(path_or_none)

os.system(command1(None))
os.system(command2(None))
os.system(command3(None))
os.system(command4(None))

Or is there something more to it?

10

This is getting a bit off-topic, but basically you won’t want str(None) to work as that’s not a path. os.fspath() makes sure you only work with path-like objects, str, or bytes. See PEP 519 – Adding a file system path protocol | peps.python.org for the full rationale.