shipping python

[Andrea Crotti]

On 10/12/2011 10:10 PM, Kristen J. Webb wrote:
> I tried experimenting with .pyc files only to end up at:
>
> RuntimeError: Bad magic number in .pyc file
>
> can't run 2.5 pyc files on 2.6 :(
>
> My main motivation to use .pyc is to keep end users from changing 
> scripts,
> breaking things, and then calling us.  Tamper proofing may be an
> alternative approach if anyone has suggestions.
>
> Otherwise, trying to summarize my goals:
>
>     1. Distribute python (and other stuff) across many platforms
>     (Linux, UNIXes, OSX, Windows)
>
>     2. Support the current 2.X version of python installed on the system
>
>     3. Take advantage of python modules that use shared OS libraries
>     (e.g. libssl.so.whatever)
>
>     4. For linux especially, support many distributions/versions
>     (getting openssl to work right, for example, is a tricky problem)
>
>     5. Take advantage of the latest python modules whenever possible
>     (hence the argparse testing).  I realize that I may be able
>     to go back so far for this to make sense...
>
>     6. Provide additional product functionality through our own
>     shared libraries (c code).
>
> I'm assuming that the customer system has python 2.X installed, 
> otherwise they
> can use their favorite OS method to get it in the standard way.
>
> Looking at methods that try to package and run without python 
> installed at
> all do not look appealing, anywhere from does it work, to export issues,
> to needing a C compiler on the client system.....
>
> Shipping .py files and support for modules like argparse for
> backward compatibility is what I've come up with so far.
> Then they have everything I need to create and install a .pyc file.
> (The can modify the installer .py files, but I expect this to be
> less of an issue and may be able to make my own simple tamper detecting
> for this).
>
> Can anyone suggest better strategies, or point out where this just 
> won't work?
>
> Is distutils a good starting point?
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Kris

Why do you want to use the system python and system libraries?
If you want to avoid too much troubles and compatibility hell maybe
give PyInstaller a try, you ship just one big executable and you're done.
But apart from that setuptools is very good to know.

And also the world is a funny place, but does it really happen that
a customer changes the code in your python scripts, and the *complain*
if it doens't work anymore??