[Python-Dev] Remove embedded expat library?

Ronald Oussoren ronaldoussoren at mac.com
Sun Jun 11 02:35:58 EDT 2017


> On 9 Jun 2017, at 18:03, Ned Deily <nad at python.org> wrote:
> 
> On Jun 9, 2017, at 08:43, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I expect that all Linux distributions build Python using
>> --with-system-expat. It may become the default? What about macOS and
>> other operating systems?
> 
> The current default is --with-system-expat=no so, unless builders of Python take explicit action, the bundled version of expat is used.  Using the bundled version is also currently the case for the python.org macOS installer, no idea what other distributors do.  Apple supplies a version of expat with macOS so we presumably we could use the system version for the installer.  Presumably (Zach?) we would need to continue to supply a version of expat for Windows builds.  But do we need to for others?  If it were only Windows, *then* perhaps it might make sense to make all the changes to move expat out of cpython into the common repo for third-party Windows libs.

I don’t think it would be a good idea to rely on the system provided libexpat on macOS, as Apple is not exactly fast w.r.t. upgrading their external dependencies and could easily stop updating libraries when the no longer need them (see for example the mess w.r.t. OpenSSL).

Ronald


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