Clean way to get the "true" stem of a Path object?

Here's another possible solution to the given problem:

from pathlib import Path

if __name__ == '__main__':
    dataset = [
        ('a', 'a'),
        ('a.txt', 'a'),
        ('archive.tar.gz', 'archive'),
        ('directory/file', 'file'),
        ('d.x.y.z/f.a.b.c', 'f'),
        ('logs/date.log.txt', 'date'),
    ]
    for path, stem in dataset:
        path = Path(path)
        assert path.name.replace("".join(path.suffixes), "") == stem

Why not go recursively?

from pathlib import Path

def true_stem(path):
   stem = Path(path).stem
   return stem if stem == path else true_stem(stem)

assert(true_stem('d.x.y.z/f.a.b.c') == 'f')

How about a while loop method, where you keep taking .stem until the path has no suffixes remaining , Example -

from pathlib import Path
example_path = Path("August 08 2015, 01'37'30.log.txt")
example_path_stem = example_path.stem
while example_path.suffixes:
    example_path_stem = example_path.stem
    example_path = Path(example_path_stem)

Please note, the while loop exits the loop when example_path.suffixes returns an empty list (As empty list are False like in boolean context) .

---

Example/Demo -

>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> example_path = Path("August 08 2015, 01'37'30.log.txt")
>>> example_path_stem = example_path.stem
>>> while example_path.suffixes:
...     example_path_stem = example_path.stem
...     example_path = Path(example_path_stem)
...
>>> example_path_stem
"August 08 2015, 01'37'30"

For your second input - no_suffix -

>>> example_path = Path("no_suffix")
>>> example_path_stem = example_path.stem
>>> while example_path.suffixes:
...     example_path_stem = example_path.stem
...     example_path = Path(example_path_stem)
...
>>> example_path_stem
'no_suffix'

You could just .split it:

>>> Path('logs/date.log.txt').stem.split('.')[0]
'date'

os.path works just as well:

>>> os.path.basename('logs/date.log.txt').split('.')[0]
'date'

It passes all of the tests:

In [11]: all(Path(k).stem.split('.')[0] == v for k, v in {
   ....:     'a': 'a',
   ....:     'a.txt': 'a',
   ....:     'archive.tar.gz': 'archive',
   ....:     'directory/file': 'file',
   ....:     'd.x.y.z/f.a.b.c': 'f',
   ....:     'logs/date.log.txt': 'date'
   ....: }.items())
Out[11]: True