[Python-ideas] Dump .pyo and the "optimize" flag

[Ron Adam]

Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> Larry Hastings <larry at ...> writes:
>> I ask you: why gunk up the filesystem with two files when one would do?  
>> I propose we change the pyc file so it can contain multiple code 
>> objects.
> 
> I think we should dump the lie about "optimized" bytecode when the only
> optimization is that we strip some docstrings, disable asserts and set __debug__
> to False.
> 
> There should be only one possible bytecode file (XXX.pyc), and we could provide
> a "strip" tool (and/or corresponding function in the compileall module) for
> people for whom minimizing bytecode file size is important.
> 
> Also, it would be interesting to know who bothers to use "python -O" (or "-OO").
> I know I never use it.

If there was an easy way to get info from python on the status and location
of the bytecode files it uses, it might not be so bad.

> python -stat module.py
   # python version
   # list of bytecode files, type, location

Then having .pyc also be used for optimized byte code could work.

On another note, it always seemed a bit backwards to me that the -OO wasn't
the default output and if it were, we would have options to run in debug
mode which would include 'docstrings', 'if debug ...' statements, and
'assert ...'  statements, for testing purposes.  <shrug>

Ron