We have what I think is one last design question for importlib.resources.

https://gitlab.com/python-devs/importlib_resources/issues/49

The problem is that the ResourceReader ABC omits the package from the function 
signatures, so that on a compatible loader, you only need to specify the 
resource you are interested in.

This is fine for file loaders because every package will have a unique loader 
instance associated with it, so it will know which package the requested 
resource is homed to.

But AFAICT, there is no specification or requirement in Python that every 
module/package have a unique loader instance.  In fact, it’s not unreasonable 
given some of the text in PEP 302 to think that loader instances can be shared. 
 The PEP says "In many cases the finder and loader can be one and the same 
object: finder.find_module() would just return self” and you aren’t going to 
typically have a unique finder per module, so that would implied a shared 
loader per finder.

We even have an existence proof in the zip importer:

>>> import test.test_importlib.zipdata02
>>> import sys, os
>>> sys.path.insert(0, 
>>> os.path.join(os.path.dirname(test.test_importlib.zipdata02.__file__), 
>>> 'ziptestdata.zip'))
>>> import ziptestdata.two
>>> import ziptestdata.one
>>> ziptestdata.one.__spec__.loader == ziptestdata.two.__spec__.loader
True

The issue above proposes two solutions.  The first is to change the ABC so that 
it includes the package argument in the ABC method signatures.  That way, a 
shared loader will know which package the requested resource is relative to.

Brett doesn’t like this, for several reasons (quoting):

1. redundant API in all cases where the loader is unique to the module
2. the memory savings of sharing a loader is small
3. it's implementation complexity/overhead for an optimization case.

The second solution, and the one Brett prefers, is to reimplement zip importer 
to not use a shared loader.  This may not be that difficult, if for example we 
were to use a delegate loader wrapping a shared loader.

The bigger problem IMHO is two-fold:

1. It would be backward incompatible.  If there’s any code out there expecting 
a shared loader in zipimport, it would break
2. More problematic is that we’d have to impose an additional requirement on 
loaders - that they always be unique per module, contradicting the advice in 
PEP 302

The reason for this is third party finder/loaders.  Sure, we can fix zipimport 
but any third party finder/loaders could have the same problem, and they’d be 
within their rights given the current specification.  We’d have to prohibit 
that, or at least say that any third party finder/loaders that shared their 
loader can’t implement ResourceReader (which would be the practical effect 
anyway).  I think that would be a shame.

So while I agree with Brett that it’s uglier, and that once we decide we’re 
essentially locked into the API, I don’t see a whole lot of options.

Thoughts, feedback, suggestions are welcome.
-Barry

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