[Python-Dev] 2to3 porting HOWTO: setup.py question

[Oscar Benjamin]

On 22 July 2012 14:08, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 11:21:38 +0300, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > http://docs.python.org/py3k/howto/pyporting.html#during-installation
> >
> > What's the point in making implicit Python 3 check here:
> > try:  # Python 3
> >   from distutils.command.build_py import build_py_2to3 as build_py
> > except ImportError:  # Python 2
> >   from distutils.command.build_py import build_py
> >
> > instead of explicit check like:
> > import sys
> > if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
> >     from distutils.command.build_py import build_py_2to3 as build_py
>
> It's called testing for the thing that actually matters, rather than
> testing a constant with a much broader meaning.  Yes, in this case the
> results are the same, but IMO it is better programming practice to test
> the thing that actually matters when you can.


I recently changed a setup.py from try/ImportError to an explicit
sys.version_info check. I'm not totally sure how to reproduce this but I
had a problem where I was installing into a 2.x virtualenv and it was
running 2to3 during install and subsequently failing to import the 3.x code
(the problem didn't occur when using the same python that generated the
virtualenv).

I may be wrong but I imagined that sometimes build_py_2to3 is importable on
2.x, perhaps for cross-building or something. In any case 'testing the
thing that matters' means testing what version of Python you are about to
install into not whether the python version supports running 2to3.

Cheers,
Oscar.
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