Reorganize `os.path` documentation

[picnixz]

The os.path documentation is alphabetically sorted. That's great because it's easy to find a function. However, this also means that functions shouldn't reference other functions documented later as the reader may not have been aware of them before.

An alternative is to reorganize the documentation page so that we put at the top the most used functions such as os.path.join. The latter caused a bit of confusion in gh-130527, where neither the OP nor me remembered that os.path.join("/a", "/b") == "/b".

If reorganizing the documentation is not preferred, we should at least add .. seealso:: directives and clickable links so that any function mentioned but not yet documented at the time of reading can be easily looked up.

• os.path.abspath contains a reference to os.path.join without a link.
• os.path.isabs could backlink to os.path.abspath.
• os.path.split mentions os.path.join but as it's far away, we could backlink it.
• os.path.join mentions "If a segment is an absolute path (which on Windows requires both a drive and a root), then all previous segments are ignored and joining continues from the absolute path segment.". We should add an example as it would be more explicit and teaching (e.g., os.path.join("/home/foo", "/home/bar") == "/home/bar".

Linked PRs

• gh-130536: Added details to os.path documentation #130557
• gh-130536: Improve os.path documentation #131872
• gh-130536: Reorganize os.path documentation #132408

[AA-Turner]

I think seealso is probably the least disruptive to start with?

A

[picnixz]

To me it's indeed the case. I know that we have Ctrl+F to find in the page, but I also know people that are happy when it's alphabetically organized. I'll quickly check which function needs cross-ref with seealso.

[picnixz]

Ok, there's not much content to update. I've written down what needs to be done (roughly), maybe there are other places that could be improved. I'll stil mark this one as easy.

[barneygale]

Maybe split the docs into lexical functions (split(), join(), etc) vs I/O functions (exists(), abspath(), etc)? See #119671

[hridyasadanand]

Hi! I’m Hridya, a first-year BTech student learning Python. I’d love to work on this issue as part of my GSoC preparation. Can I take it?