Feature or enhancement

Add afollow_symlinks argument topathlib.Path.is_dir(), defaulting toTrue

Pitch

Pathlib'swalk() andglob() implementations are built uponos.scandir(), which yieldsos.DirEntry objects. The interface foros.DirEntry is a rough subset ofpathlib.Path, including thename attribute andis_dir() method.

Pathlib only ever callsos.scandir() via a privatepathlib.Path._scandir() method, currently defined as follows:

def_scandir(self):returnos.scandir(self)

In future I'd like to add apathlib.AbstractPath class with abstractstat(),iterdir() andopen() methods.

The default implementation ofAbstractPath._scandir() would useiterdir():

def_scandir(self):returncontextlib.nullcontext(list(self.iterdir()))

Note how it returnsAbstractPath objects, and notDirEntry objects. This exploits the similarities of thePath andDirEntry APIs.

... but there's a problem!

Theos.DirEntry.is_dir() method accepts a keyword-onlyfollow_symlinks argument. Our globbing implementation requires us to set this argument. But thePath.is_dir() method does not accept this argument!

If we add a keyword-onlyfollow_symlinks argument toPath.is_dir(), we make it compatible withos.DirEntry.is_dir(), which in turn allows us to build aglob() implementation upon user-definedstat() anditerdir() methods in a futureAbstractPath class.

Previous discussion

General discussion ofAbstractPath:https://discuss.python.org/t/make-pathlib-extensible/3428

We added afollow_symlinks argument toPath.exists() in#89769 /#29655.

Linked PRs

• GH-105793: Add follow_symlinks argument topathlib.Path.is_dir() andis_file() #105794