[Python-ideas] Changing the name of __pycache__

[Ethan Furman]

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>> On Feb 9, 2011, at 1:07 AM, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>>
>>> Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>>>> It would be great if there was some way to change the name to .pycache so that it doesn't pollute directory listings.
>>>>
>>>> The dot-naming convention seems to be widely used (.bashrc, .emacs, .hgignore, etc.).  Ideally, we should follow that convention also or at least provide a way to make the change locally (perhaps an environment variable).
>>> While I don't the like name either, I think it's important that this
>>> particular aspect is not configurable: there are tools relying on
>>> finding the .pyc files based on the location of the .py files
>>> and those don't necessarily run in the same environment as the
>>> application, e.g. think of all the freeze tools, or situations
>>> where the application itself runs as daemon under a different
>>> user account than the one used to administer the application.
>> The #define for the name is on line 115 in Python/import.c.
>>
>> If a consensus were to emerge, it would still be possible to 
>> change the name from "__pycache__" to ".pycache".
> 
> +1 on ".pycache".
> 
> "__pycache__" looks too much like a special Python package
> dir to me.
> 
+1 on ".pycache" as well.

~Ethan~