[Python-Dev] Case sensitive import.

[Steven D. Majewski]

On Fri, 2 Feb 2001, Jeremy Hylton wrote:

> 
> Our plan is to remove all of these modules and move the constants they
> define into the modules that provide the interface.  Fred has already
> removed SOCKET, since all the constants are defined in socket.  I
> don't think we'll get to the others in time for 2.1a2.
> 
> Guido is strongly opposed to continuing after check_case returns
> false.  His explanation is that imports ought to work whether all the
> there are multiple directories on sys.path or all the files are copied
> into a single directory.  Obviously on file systems like HFS+, it
> would be impossible to have FCNTL.py and fcntl.py be in the same
> directory. 

This is in my previous message to the list, but since there seems to
be (from my end, anyway) a long delay in list propagation, I'll repeat
to you, Jeremy:


The other problem is that without a patch, you can crash python 
with a mis-cased typo, as it tries to import the same module
under two names:

>>> import cStringIO
>>> import cstringio
dyld: python2.0 multiple definitions of symbol _initcStringIO
/usr/local/lib/python2.0/lib-dynload/cStringIO.so definition of 
_initcStringIO
/usr/local/lib/python2.0/lib-dynload/cstringio.so definition of 
_initcStringIO

[ crash and burn back to shell prompt... ] 

instead of (with patch):

>>> import cstringio
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
ImportError: No module named cstringio
>>> 


A .py module doesn't crash like a .so module, but it still yields
two (or more) different modules for each case spelling, which 
could be the source of some pretty hard to find bugs when 
MyModule.val != mymodule.val. ( Which is a more innocent mistake
than the person who actually writes two different files for 
MyModule.py and mymodule.py ! )


---|  Steven D. Majewski   (804-982-0831)  <sdm7g@Virginia.EDU>  |---
---|  Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics  |---
---|  University of Virginia             Health Sciences Center  |---
---|  P.O. Box 10011            Charlottesville, VA  22906-0011  |---
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