[Python-Dev] configure produces a non-working Makefile in some scenarios, due to ASDLGEN

[Vinay Sajip]

In some scenarios, configure produces a Makefile which fails because ASDLGEN
doesn't point to a working Python. In particular, it seems to assume that if
there is an executable called e.g. "python3.4" on the path, then that will be a
system Python.

In my perhaps unusual but IMO perfectly valid setup, I have various Python repos
set up like so:

$HOME/projects/python
                 |
                 +- default
                 |
                 +- 3.3
                 |
                 + and so on for 3.2, 3.1, 2.7

In order to facilitate testing some script against multiple Python versions, I
have shell scripts in $HOME/bin named python3.4, python3.3 etc. which just run
the programs in the relevant directories in $HOME/projects/python/. (I know I
can do this using aliases etc., but I think that's beside the point.)

When I run configure in the repo for the default branch, it appears to look for
a Python on the path named python3.4, finds one in $HOME/bin, and thus generates
an ASDLGEN value of "python3.4". If I happen to have a built Python in the
default repo, then the script in $HOME/bin will successfully run that, and all
appears well; but if I clean the default repo and re-run make, it fails at the
ASDLGEN step, because the $HOME/bin/python3.4 script fails, due to not being
able to invoke $HOME/projects/python/default/python.

Is this a bug in configure, or is my configuration regarded as too perverse to
support?

Regards,

Vinay Sajip