[Python-Dev] module extension search order - can it be changed?

[Skip Montanaro]

    >> This doesn't quite make sense to me.  Instead of ".so cannot be
    >> built" did you mean ".so cannot be imported"?

    Guido> No, I meant what I said.  Once the file is found, it will be
    Guido> tried and if that fails, the other files won't be tried.  The
    Guido> idea was that if the .so cannot be built, it won't be installed
    Guido> -- but the .py will be there at all times.

In which case there is no .so file to try to find, thus no "feature".

    >> In any case, the current solution to my underlying problem (so many
    >> failing stat() calls during module import) appears to be to create
    >> $prefix/python23.zip and populate it with the contents of the
    >> standard library using zipfile.PyZipFile.

    Guido> Right, that's what zipimport is for.

Any thought about having the installation process create and populate
python23.zip?  It's not particularly hard.  I'm willing to submit a patch
for the build/install process.

Skip