Documentation of `pkgutil.walk_packages` is unclear
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Description
Documentation
Documentation for the function pkgutil.walk_packages says:
Yields
ModuleInfofor all modules recursively on path , or, if path isNone, all accessible modules.
Emphasis on modules recursively mine. The function is only recursively if the correct prefix value is provided, which is not super clear from the docs:
prefix is a string to output on the front of every module name on output.
For example:
>>> import pkgutil
>>> len(list(pkgutil.walk_packages(['/usr/lib64/python3.10/xml/'])))
4
>>> len(list(pkgutil.walk_packages(['/usr/lib64/python3.10/xml/'], '')))
4
>>> len(list(pkgutil.walk_packages(['/usr/lib64/python3.10/xml/'], 'xml.')))
21
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the library documentation for pkgutil.walk_packages and compare the description of recursive discovery with the prefix parameter. Clarify that recursion depends on supplying the package prefix, using the reported xml examples to make the behavior and expected output clear.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- documentation
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 48/100