Description

markrwilliams

opened on Apr 8, 2023

Issue body actions

Feature or enhancement

pathlib.Path.owner() and pathlib.Path.group() always follow symbolic links. They should gain a new argument, follow_symlinks, that defaults to True. This will align their API with that of pathlib.Path.stat() and pathlib.Path.chmod()

Pitch

Most pathlib.Path methods follow symbolic links, so it's natural for these ownership methods to do the same.
However, doing so unconditionally results in a surprising error when you'd actually like them to look at a link's ownership - for example, to work with a system that uses dangling symbolic links as lock files - and there's no convenient API to call instead.

Previous discussion

#65521 brought up the same issue but proposed fixing it by changing the system call from stat to lstat, which was deemed too disruptive.
#18864 added follow_symlinks to pathlib.Path.stat and pathlib.Path.chmod. A commenter asked about adding this argument to other methods, namely is_file() and is_dir().

I'm happy to contribute the code if this seems worth doing.

Linked PRs

• gh-103363: Add follow_symlinks argument to pathlib.Path.owner() and group() #107962

Reacted by Barney Gale

Activity

1. markrwilliams

   added

   type-featureA feature request or enhancementA feature request or enhancement

   on Apr 8, 2023
2. sobolevn

   added

   topic-pathlib

   on Apr 8, 2023
3. barneygale commented on Apr 9, 2023

   

   barneygale

   on Apr 9, 2023

   Contributor

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   Sounds reasonable to me!
4. ganesh-k13 commented on May 14, 2023

   

   ganesh-k13

   on May 14, 2023

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   @markrwilliams are you working on this issue? I'd be happy to add it if you are not.
5. kamilturek commented on Aug 15, 2023

   

   kamilturek

   on Aug 15, 2023

   Contributor

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   Given no action for several months on this issue, I decided to open a PR.
6. iritkatriel

   added

   stdlibStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directoryStandard Library Python modules in the Lib/ directory

   on Nov 23, 2023
7. kamilturek

   added a commit that references this issue on Dec 2, 2023

   Merge branch 'main' into pythongh-103363

   5ed359d
8. barneygale

   added this to pathlib issueson Dec 2, 2023
9. barneygale

   added a commit that references this issue on Dec 4, 2023

   gh-103363: Add follow_symlinks argument to `pathlib.Path.owner()` and…

   a1551b4
10. barneygale commented on Dec 4, 2023

    

    barneygale

    on Dec 4, 2023

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    Implemented by @kamilturek in #107962, merged into 3.13 as a1551b4 🎉
11. barneygale

    closed this as completedon Dec 4, 2023
12. github-project-automation

    moved this to Done in pathlib issueson Dec 4, 2023
13. aisk

    added a commit that references this issue on Feb 11, 2024

    pythongh-103363: Add follow_symlinks argument to `pathlib.Path.owner(…

    0909269
14. jb2170 commented on Jul 8, 2024

    

    jb2170

    on Jul 8, 2024

    Contributor

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    Nice
15. Glyphack

    added a commit that references this issue on Sep 2, 2024

    pythongh-103363: Add follow_symlinks argument to `pathlib.Path.owner(…

    b0c814f

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