Andrew Dalke writes:
What is the correct location for "pure" python module installations?
$(prefix)/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages or $(prefix)/lib/site-python
site-python/ is the original location, but never had a platform-specific counterpart. site-packages/ was intended to solve this, which is why it comes in both flavors, and deals with version- related issues. In general, 100% Python packages should be installed in site-packages/, because not all packages are sure to work across major version changes: it's too easy to rely on the bahavior of bugs in the library. ;-( This results in the safest (most conservative) installation and allows for faster detection on libraries which are not available for the Python version: ImportError is harder to misinterpret than buggy behavior. Only use site-python/ if you really are confident that your package will stand the test of Python interpreter updates. Unless there is a major problem with diskspace, just don't do this! Packages that contain native code should install in $(exec_prefix)/lib/python$VERSION/site-packages/.
As I understand it now, the python specific .so files need to be on the PYTHONPATH, which currently contains no information about
This varies by platform, but I don't think the various binary flavors for SGIs are indicated; the directories on sys.path which are platform-specific are either computed from $exec_prefix or contain Python modules under $prefix that are only meaningful for the platform. I presume each of these platform variations would get a different $exec_prefix, or the distinction would be hidden at a lower level (such as mounting a filesystem at a common point based on binary flavor; not hard with NFS).
-Fred
-- Fred L. Drake, Jr. fdrake@acm.org Corporation for National Research Initiatives