[Python-ideas] disabling .pyc and .pyo files

[John Arbash Meinel]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> -B only blocks *writing* of bytecode. I think the OP wants to block
> *reading*, and only in the specific case where there is no
> corresponding source code file.
> 
> 2009/12/8 Todd Whiteman <toddw at activestate.com>:
>> Kristján Valur Jónsson wrote:
>>> I looked at the import code and I found that it is trivial to block the
>>> reading and writing of .pyo files.  I am about to implement that patch for
>>> our purposes, thus forcing recompilation of the .py files on each run if so
>>> specified.   This will ensure that the application will execute only the
>>> code represented by the checked-out .py files.  But it occurred to me that
>>> this functionality might be of interest to other people than just us.  I can
>>> imagine, for example, that buildbots running the python regression testsuite
>>> might be running into problems with stray .pyo files from time to time.
>>>
>>> Do you think that such a command line option would be useful for Python at
>>> large?
>> Yes, this is already implemented (as of Python 2.6), see -B option:
>> http://www.python.org/doc/2.6.4/using/cmdline.html#miscellaneous-options

This would be quite nice for us. In our case we have been bit several
times during refactoring. You move one file, but your test suite still
passes because .pyc is still around.

I think having it be opt-in would be nice.

I do think that the standard py2exe code generates a library.zip that
only has .pyc or .pyo files (and no .py files). It isn't that we would
care if they were present, but I suppose it makes the final .zip file
smaller and faster to load?

Whatever flag is available, though, I'm sure py2exe could be taught to
pass it.

John
=:->