[Python-Dev] [PEPs] Support the /usr/bin/python2 symlink upstream

[Dj Gilcrease]

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 9:33 PM, Mark Hammond <skippy.hammond at gmail.com> wrote:
> IIUC, the PEP language is referring to links which point to a specific
> version of Python and that there is no suggestion a 'python3' will live in
> the Python 3 binary tree.  If that is correct and assuming we don't want to
> investigate using links on Windows, I'd suggest the best analogy to the *nix
> situation could be simply for the installers to generate "python2.bat" and
> "python3.bat" files and put them in System32 with a "last installed wins"
> policy.  The fact this doesn't help users installing Python "just for me" is
> fine too from the POV of matching *nix systems - a user installing a private
> Python build on *nix also doesn't get the python2 and python3 conveniences,
> nor the automatic PATH convenience.  But in practice I expect this would
> *not* be OK - which just highlights the risks of trying to generalize a
> specific observed problem on one OS to others.

Why not modify the windows installers to install into C:\Python\X.Y
and have the .bat files generated in C:\Python which is what I have
been doing manually since py25. I just add C:\Python to the system
Path then create/modify the bat files for new versions of python I
install.

C:\Python\python.bat -> 3.2/python.exe
C:\Python\python2.bat -> 2.7/python.exe
C:\Python\python3.bat -> 3.2/python.exe
C:\Python\python2.5.bat -> 2.5/python.exe
...

Something I have been thinking about recently though is outside the
scope of the pep is writing a python.exe, to replace the python.bat,
that would  try to read the shebang line of the file to send it to the
right version of python. Then I just associate py files with the
dispatcher exe and everything should work as intended.