`web3.providers.ipc.get_default_ipc_path()` returned `None` instead of `str`

[antazoey]

• Version: 6.0.0
• Python: 3.10
• OS: macky whacky
• pip freeze output

will provide if needed

What was wrong?

The method get_deafult_ipc_path() located in web3.providers.ipc returned None even though its return type is documented as str.

I am not sure why it returned None in my case, probably forgot some flag in geth.

Edit: it returned None in my case because i was checking it before starting geth, so it didnt exist yet.

How can it be fixed?

Either change type to Optional[str] or raise an error instead of returning None ?

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[antazoey]

For us, it is most useful to have this path even if it does not currently exist yet, since it may not exist at config time but may exist once starting geth, but it is also a flag for the geth cmd itself

    if sys.platform == "darwin":
        return os.path.expanduser(os.path.join("~", "Library", "Ethereum", "geth.ipc"))

    elif sys.platform.startswith("linux") or sys.platform.startswith("freebsd"):
        return os.path.expanduser(os.path.join("~", ".ethereum", "geth.ipc"))

    elif sys.platform == "win32":
        return os.path.join("\\\\", ".", "pipe", "geth.ipc")

    else:
        raise ValueError(
            f"Unsupported platform '{sys.platform}'.  Only darwin/linux/win32/"
            "freebsd are supported.  You must specify the ipc_path"
        )

[kclowes]

OS: macky whacky

This is cracking me up 😆

It would be a small breaking change to return the path even if it doesn't exist, but I changed the type and made the return None explicit in #2917. I don't see a problem with returning the path whether or not it exists, so I'll add this issue to our v7 megathread