Rename _typeshed.AnyPath?

[srittau]

TLDR: Let's rename AnyPath to PathName (or a better alias).

I seem to remember that @JelleZijlstra didn't like the name AnyPath as an alias for str | bytes | PathLike[str] | PathLike[bytes] when I introduced it. I agreed, but couldn't come up with a better name. When working on #5467, it became apparent to me that having a "real" AnyPath, i.e. an alias that is basically AnyPath[_T] = _T | PathLike[_T] would be quite useful. I don't think there is a way to have a generic alias yet, but I still propose we should rename AnyPath in preparation and to avoid confusion with AnyStr. The best I can come up with at the moment is PathName. Any better ideas? Other suggestions? Not a good idea?

[Akuli]

Tkinter stubs have a generic alias:

typeshed/stdlib/tkinter/__init__.pyi

Line 100 in 4a3b6eb

_TkinterSequence = Union[List[_T], Tuple[_T, ...]]

[JelleZijlstra]

If only we could rename AnyStr. It would be better if typevars were suffixed with T.

Tkinter stubs have a generic alias

I think mypy has issues with aliases of the form T | Cls[T]. Worth trying again though to see if that works now. In a couple of places we have added separate overloads for AnyStr and PathLike to work around that bug.

I'm not having much luck thinking of a better name that's still concise. PathOfAnyKind, StrOrBytesPath?

[srittau]

Maybe StrOrBytesPath is the best option. While not concise, it's clear, especially its relation to StrPath and BytesPath.

[srittau]

#5592 removes AnyPath. I'd suggest to give it a few months (and at least a mypy release) before introducing the AnyPath generic alias.

[AlexWaygood]

The original AnyPath has now been renamed, and we have a generic type alias in the form of _typeshed.GenericPath: #7970. Closing this issue as completed 🎉