[Distutils] generating pyc and pyo files

[Fred L. Drake]

Michael P. Reilly <arcege@shore.net> said:
 > I disagree.  I see no reason to double the size of the
 > distribution by shipping redundent files (on average, a .pyc
 > is 78.786% of a .py, based on the Python 1.5.1 distribution;
 > .pyo is 88.148%).

Andrew Dalke, on 29 March 1999, writes:
 > "build" directory.  The .pyo and .pyc files are generated
 > in the build directory on the local (downloaded) machine.

Greg Ward writes:
 > Well, actually, you're both right.  Compiling .py files at build time
 > will not affect *source* distributions, which is what Andrew is talking

  And I say Michael's figures are conservative; most .pyc files are
larger than the .py files.  (I've attached a simple script to compare
the sizes; Unix only.)

 > Does this seem like a problem to anyone else?  I still want to keep
 > installation as simple as possible -- and, more importantly, be able to
 > trivially determine the set of files that will be installed -- but if
 > increasing the size of built distributions really bothers you, speak up!

  I think a lot of people will be bothered by the increased size,
whether or not we are.  People with poor connectivity and archive
maintainers will want reduced size.  Removing the .pyc and .pyo files
will help make packages less tied to Python versions as well; these
files have often been obsoleted by changes between Python versions.
It's simple enough to generate them during installation when we're
able to run at that time.  For RPMs this should be fine; I'm not sure
about other package systems.  For some, it may make sense to build
them in the installation locations and then chmod them; this may be
the case for the Solaris PKG system.  (Barry, are you following this?)


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	     <fdrake@acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives