[Paul Moore]
... Accepting that Unix is generally not an issue, let's look at Windows. On cmd.exe, at least on Windows 2000 and up, the following makes .py files "executable" by python:
assoc .py=Python.File ftype Python.File=C:\Python23\python.exe "%1" %* set PATHEXT=%PATHEXT%;.py
Can anyone test this on COMMAND.COM on Win9x?
PATHEXT has no special meaning on 9x; you can set PATHEXT on 9x, but it has no effect. ...
- Change the Windows Python binary to add .py (and .pyw, maybe) to PATHEXT
I don't like that. The Python Windows installer doesn't add, or modify, any environment variables now. It's anti-social to muck with them. Anyone using "a DOS box" should know how to do that themself -- if that's what they want. I'll note that I spend much of my life in a WinXP DOS box running Python programs, but I haven't set PATHEXT. Since cmd.exe's path completion fills in the trailing .py on a .py file all by itself, setting PATHEXT wouldn't save me any typing.