[Python-Dev] compileall.py and make install

[Guido van Rossum]

> A brief historical analysis of the situation
> 
> In the olden days, py_compile.py did not catch SyntaxErrors.  If
> compileall.py used py_compile.py to compile a file and it failed,
> it would print an error message but continue working. 
> 
> When Python 1.5.2 was released, py_compile was updated to catch the
> exceptions on its own.
> 
> About six months later, well before 2.0, a change was made to
> compileall to exit with non-zero status if it caught a syntax error.
> This change apparently had no effect, because compileall never saw
> syntax errors.

Hm.  That change was never tested, apparently. :-(

This means that even if we fix py_compile.py after 2.1 is released, we
risk breaking existing usage.  Not clear whether that should matter
much though.

But definitely not a risk I want to take in 2.1.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)