Expose _NamespacePath

[FFY00]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

Currently, _NamespacePath is prefixed as a private type, but since it's exposed, it should be marked as public API. I have a specific case in mind where I want to do an instance check.

I vaguely remember a discussion somewhere with @warsaw where this was mentioned, but I can't find it.

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

This is a minor feature, which does not need previous discussion elsewhere

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

No response

Linked PRs

• GH-119668: expose importlib.machinery.NamespacePath #119669

[warsaw]

I'll have to look around to see if I can dig up the previous discussion, but +1!

[ericvsmith]

I don't think we thought it should be hidden, rather there was just no reason to expose it. What's the need for accessing it? If it's at all compelling, then I'm +1.

[FFY00]

For my specific case, I am loading data from a namespace package, or rather, I need to point to the directories containing said data. This could also be solved by importlib.resources in MultiplexedPath, I have opened python/importlib_resources#309 too.