Multiple config paths treated as single path

[alexreg]

Description

The global configuration path on my macOS system is in fact a colon-separated list of multiple paths, but is treated as a single path.

Specifically, the global configuration path /opt/homebrew/share/pip:/Library/Application Support/pip/pip.conf is incorrectly treated as a single path where the : is part of a supposed intermediate directory named pip:.

This seems to be originating with the site_data_dir function, which since v4.2.0 may return a colon-separated list of paths, and pip doesn't presently handle that.

Expected behavior

Both global configuration paths should be searched separately by pip.

pip version

24.2

Python version

3.12.4

OS

macOS 14.5

How to Reproduce

1. On a macOS system with Homebrew, run brew install python3.12.
2. Run pip3.12 config debug.
3. Observe the global path output by the previous command is in fact multiple paths separated by colons (two in my case).

Output

$ pip3.12 config debug
env_var:
env:
global:
  /opt/homebrew/share/pip:/Library/Application Support/pip/pip.conf, exists: False
site:
  /opt/homebrew/opt/python@3.12/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/pip.conf, exists: False
user:
  /Users/alex/.pip/pip.conf, exists: True
  /Users/alex/.config/pip/pip.conf, exists: False

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.

[ichard26]

D'oh, how silly. A PR fixing this would be welcome!

I can't find a reason why multipath was enabled, but not handled. The PR introducing it doesn't have any clues: #7501.

[pradyunsg]

It looks like this needs to be fixed in platformdirs. Labelling this to reflect that. @alexreg Could I ask you to file an issue with https://github.com/platformdirs/platformdirs/?

[pradyunsg]

Or... am I misunderstanding something?

[uranusjr]

It looks like this is an intended behaviour, and downstream users are simply expected to handle the possible return format.

I should note that even platformdirs itself does not handle this correctly—site_data_path for example simply treats this value as a path and would also fail.

https://github.com/platformdirs/platformdirs/blob/6a0ff603755b2b5af1f6e272054894867acfaed1/src/platformdirs/api.py#L179-L182

It seems like the Homebrew note was added last year without work to actually accomodate this change anywhere else. This change was not mentioned in the release notes.

tox-dev/platformdirs@682cdcb

So yeah from the information currently available, I think we should fix it in pip. But judging from the peripherals, we should probably still raise an issue in platformdirs first to make sure the “intended” behaviour is actually intended, and then act accordingly.

[matthewhughes934]

I created an issue upstream to discuss: tox-dev/platformdirs#292

[alexreg]

I agree with @uranusjr that this appears to be an issue with both pip and platformdirs itself failing to handle the case of multiple colon-separated paths. I'll have a look at implementing a fix and submitting a PR on the weekend, if no one beats me to it.