[Python-Dev] Should Python's library modules be written to help the freeze tools?

[Tony Meyer]

The Python 2.4 Lib/bsddb/__init__.py contains this:

"""
# for backwards compatibility with python versions older than 2.3, the
# iterator interface is dynamically defined and added using a mixin
# class.  old python can't tokenize it due to the yield keyword.
if sys.version >= '2.3':
    exec """
import UserDict
from weakref import ref
class _iter_mixin(UserDict.DictMixin):
...
"""

Because the imports are inside an exec, modulefinder (e.g. when using bsddb
with a py2exe built application) does not realise that the imports are
required.  (The requirement can be manually specified, of course, if you
know that you need to do so).

I believe that changing the above code to:

"""
if sys.version >= '2.3':
    import UserDict
    from weakref import ref
    exec """
class _iter_mixin(UserDict.DictMixin):
"""

Would still have the intended effect and would let modulefinder do its work.

The main question (to steal Thomas's words) is whether the library modules
should be written to help the freeze tools - if the answer is 'yes', then
I'll submit the above as a patch for 2.5.

Thanks!

=Tony.Meyer