[issue10215] Mac Python 3.1 installer does less than earlier installers

[Ned Deily]

Ned Deily <nad at acm.org> added the comment:

It was a deliberate decision on Ronald's part to not modify the Versions/Current link in the Python framework when installing a Python 3.x version.  As far as I know, the Current link is not used anywhere other than perhaps by Xcode when trying to link a Python frameworks into another language project.  Current has no affect on any of the /usr/local symlinks optionally created by the python OS X installer.

Use of the those symlinks is somewhat problematic anyway once you install any third-party packages the include scripts.  By default, Distutils installs scripts into the framework bin directory of the appropriate version.  That's why the recommended approach to managing paths is to simply put the framework bin directory towards the head of your shell PATH.  For each version, the OS X installer provides "Update Shell Profile.command" to alter the most common shell profiles accordingly; it can be found in the "/Applications/Python x.m" folder.  As documented in the installer README, for 3.x installs, the installer does not automatically run "Update Shell Profile" as it does for 2.x installs; you need to run it explicitly or otherwise cause PATH to be changed.

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nosy: +ned.deily

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