[Python-Dev] Exposing the Android platform existence to Python modules

[Guido van Rossum]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Phil Thompson <phil at riverbankcomputing.com>
wrote:

> To me the issue is whether, for a particular value of sys.platform, the
> programmer can expect a particular Python stdlib API. If so then Android
> needs a different value for sys.platform.
>

sys.platform is for a broad indication of the OS kernel. It can be used to
distinguish Windows, Mac and Linux (and BSD, Solaris etc.). Since Android
is Linux it should have the same sys.platform as other Linux systems
('linux2'). If you want to know whether a specific syscall is there, check
for the presence of the method in the os module.

The platform module is suitable for additional vendor-specific info about
the platform, and I'd hope that there's something there that indicates
Android. Again, what values does the platform module return on SL4A or
Kivy, which have already ported Python to Android? In particular, I'd
expect platform.linux_distribution() to return a clue that it's Android.
There should also be clues in /etc/lsb-release (assuming Android supports
it :-).

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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