Add fn to coerce pathlike to string

Author: CRiddler

nibabel/loadsave.py

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 
 import os
 import numpy as np
+import pathlib
 
 from .filename_parser import splitext_addext
 from .openers import ImageOpener
@@ -19,6 +20,33 @@
 from .arrayproxy import is_proxy
 from .deprecated import deprecate_with_version
 
+def _stringify_path(filepath_or_buffer):
+    """Attempt to convert a path-like object to a string.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    filepath_or_buffer : object to be converted
+    Returns
+    -------
+    str_filepath_or_buffer : maybe a string version of the object
+    Notes
+    -----
+    Objects supporting the fspath protocol (python 3.6+) are coerced
+    according to its __fspath__ method.
+    For backwards compatibility with older pythons, pathlib.Path and
+    py.path objects are specially coerced.
+    Any other object is passed through unchanged, which includes bytes,
+    strings, buffers, or anything else that's not even path-like.
+
+    Copied from:
+    https://github.com/pandas-dev/pandas/blob/325dd686de1589c17731cf93b649ed5ccb5a99b4/pandas/io/common.py#L131-L160
+    """
+    if hasattr(filepath_or_buffer, "__fspath__"):
+        return filepath_or_buffer.__fspath__() 
+    elif isinstance(filepath_or_buffer, pathlib.Path):
+        return str(filepath_or_buffer)
+    return filepath_or_buffer
+
 
 def load(filename, **kwargs):
     ''' Load file given filename, guessing at file type
@@ -35,11 +63,6 @@ def load(filename, **kwargs):
     img : ``SpatialImage``
        Image of guessed type
     '''
-    #Coerce pathlib objects
-    if hasattr(filename, '__fspath__'):
-        filename = filename.__fspath__()
-    else:
-        filename = str(filename)
 
     #Check file exists and is not empty
     try: