Issue #22570: Add 'path' attribute to pathlib.Path objects.

Lib/pathlib.py

@@ -645,6 +645,13 @@ class PurePath(object):
                                                   self._parts) or '.'
             return self._str
 
+    @property
+    def path(self):
+        try:
+            return self._str
+        except AttributeError:
+            return str(self)
+
     def as_posix(self):
         """Return the string representation of the path with forward (/)
         slashes."""

Lib/test/test_pathlib.py

@@ -480,6 +480,22 @@ class _BasePurePathTest(object):
         self.assertEqual(P('a/b.py').name, 'b.py')
         self.assertEqual(P('/a/b.py').name, 'b.py')
 
+    def test_path_common(self):
+        P = self.cls
+        def check(arg, expected=None):
+            if expected is None:
+                expected = arg
+            self.assertEqual(P(arg).path, expected.replace('/', self.sep))
+        check('', '.')
+        check('.')
+        check('/')
+        check('a/b')
+        check('/a/b')
+        check('/a/b/', '/a/b')
+        check('/a/b/.', '/a/b')
+        check('a/b.py')
+        check('/a/b.py')
+
     def test_suffix_common(self):
         P = self.cls
         self.assertEqual(P('').suffix, '')
@@ -903,6 +919,17 @@ class PureWindowsPathTest(_BasePurePathTest, unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(P('//My.py/Share.php').name, '')
         self.assertEqual(P('//My.py/Share.php/a/b').name, 'b')
 
+    def test_path(self):
+        P = self.cls
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:').path, 'c:')
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:/').path, 'c:\\')
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:a/b').path, 'c:a\\b')
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:/a/b').path, 'c:\\a\\b')
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:a/b.py').path, 'c:a\\b.py')
+        self.assertEqual(P('c:/a/b.py').path, 'c:\\a\\b.py')
+        self.assertEqual(P('//My.py/Share.php').path, '\\\\My.py\\Share.php\\')
+        self.assertEqual(P('//My.py/Share.php/a/b').path, '\\\\My.py\\Share.php\\a\\b')
+
     def test_suffix(self):
         P = self.cls
         self.assertEqual(P('c:').suffix, '')

Misc/NEWS

@@ -13,6 +13,12 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #22570: Add 'path' attribute to pathlib.Path objects,
+  returning the same as str(), to make it more similar to DirEntry.
+  Library code can now write getattr(p, 'path', p) to get the path as
+  a string from a Path, a DirEntry, or a plain string.  This is
+  essentially a small one-off protocol.
+
 - Issue #26012: Don't traverse into symlinks for ** pattern in
   pathlib.Path.[r]glob().