small python implementation or python subset ?

[François Pinard]

Marc BRETTE <mbre at sxb.bsf.alcatel.fr> écrit:

> OK, to summarize all answer that has been dent to me :
> 1/ On unix the python executable after source compilation seems not to be
> stripped. [...]

I just checked on the SuSE 6.2 system, here:

---------------------------------------------------------------------->
$ type python
python is /usr/bin/python
$ v /usr/bin/python
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            9 Sep 14 08:59 /usr/bin/python -> python1.5
$ v /usr/bin/python1.5
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root       460145 Jul 23  1999 /usr/bin/python1.5
$ file /usr/bin/python1.5
/usr/bin/python1.5: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped
$ rpm -qf /usr/bin/python1.5
python-1.5.2-9
----------------------------------------------------------------------<

Despite Richard Stallman's opinion that binaries should never be installed
stripped (this has been debated to death elsewhere :-), the common, accepted,
and expected usage for Linux packagers is to strip installed binaries.

Does someone know why Python is installed unstripped?  Would that be
required by dynamic loading in some way?  I do not think so.  Else, why?
(If I strip it, size drops from 460145 to 382616, surely not an enormous
deal, but yet, would it be for the principle. :-)

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard