Renaming the project from pkl because of prior existing python pickle file format #188

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adam · 2025-12-30T01:21:53+01:00

adam commented

2025-12-30 01:21:53 +01:00

Originally created by @dov on GitHub (Jul 18, 2024).

The extension pkl has been in use for python pickled files from the beginning of the python project. It is true, that there is not an official extension for pickle files, but still in practice it is widely used.

See e.g. the documentation for python2: https://docs.python.org/2/library/pickle.html#example

Also, just do a quick google search for "python pkl" and you will find lots of results. And you even call your file format "pickle", i.e. the name of the serialized python file format.

It is quite surprising that you did not care to do such a search before settling on the name of this project! (Can it possible be because you think that Apple is too big to concern itself with the existing ecosystem?)

Here are some example names that I suggest that you use for this project. I'm sure that you can come up with lots of other names.

cfl - "caffle" - configuration language
afl - "aflle" - Apple configuration language
akl - "ackle" - Apple pickled files

Please change before it is too late, and show that Apple wants to be part of the community, instead of overriding it.

Originally created by @dov on GitHub (Jul 18, 2024). The extension `pkl` has been in use for python pickled files from the beginning of the python project. It is true, that there is not an official extension for pickle files, but still in practice it is widely used. See e.g. the documentation for python2: https://docs.python.org/2/library/pickle.html#example Also, just do a quick google search for "python pkl" and you will find **lots** of results. And you even call your file format "pickle", i.e. the name of the serialized python file format. It is quite surprising that you did not care to do such a search before settling on the name of this project! (Can it possible be because you think that Apple is too big to concern itself with the existing ecosystem?) Here are some example names that I suggest that you use for this project. I'm sure that you can come up with lots of other names. - cfl - "caffle" - configuration language - afl - "aflle" - Apple configuration language - akl - "ackle" - Apple pickled files Please change before it is too late, and show that Apple wants to be part of the community, instead of overriding it.

adam closed this issue

2025-12-30 01:21:53 +01:00

adam commented

2025-12-30 01:21:54 +01:00

@bioball commented on GitHub (Jul 18, 2024):

We recognize that this extension can possibly clash with Python pickle files. While it's quite unfortunate, it's also pretty hard to avoid a clash; almost any short enough name will clash with something else out there. FWIW: Python has changed the extension in their docs (it now uses .pickle in python3). And, like you said, there's no official file extension for Python's pickle files.

Closing this as we don't plan on doing a rename here. For more on this discussion, see https://github.com/apple/pkl/issues/118

@bioball commented on GitHub (Jul 18, 2024): We recognize that this extension can possibly clash with Python pickle files. While it's quite unfortunate, it's also pretty hard to avoid a clash; almost any short enough name will clash with something else out there. FWIW: Python has changed the extension in their docs ([it now uses `.pickle` in python3](https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/pickle.html#examples)). And, like you said, there's no official file extension for Python's pickle files. Closing this as we don't plan on doing a rename here. For more on this discussion, see https://github.com/apple/pkl/issues/118

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Reference: starred/pkl#188