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

[Bill Bumgarner]

On Tuesday, Feb 25, 2003, at 15:04 US/Eastern, 
python-dev-request@python.org wrote:
> python23.zip is good for end users of programs written in Python, but
> not so good for Python programmers: AFAIK it won't show source lines
> in tracebacks for modules loaded from the zip file.

Speaking entirely from a point of ignorance, why are the source line #s 
not shown for frames that are implemented in modules loaded from 
zipimport?

Assuming the ZIP archive could be exactly identical to what one might 
find in /usr/lib/python2.3/, the zip could contain all the py + pyc as 
found in the normal library?

As such, it would be trivial for the developer to unzip the zip into-- 
for example-- /tmp/ for reference purposes.   Assuming the developer 
has a copy of the 2.3 source lying around and has the zip with just the 
PYC, the lines numbers are still very useful.

All things considered, I would think it would be highly desirable for 
the developer's Python development environment to be as much like a 
stock deployment environment as possible.   Java made a grave mistake 
in this regard -- the whole class loader mechanism can cause massive 
problems-- very annoying and hard to debug problems-- when moving code 
from a development environment into deployment if the class loader that 
loads a particular class changes between the two environments.

b.bum