[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: Pythonmac-SIG Digest, Vol 20, Issue 24

[Jon Schull]

Thanks for the replies

Jon said
> The problem of multiple pythons on OSX is really really crippling.     
> I use visual python (which requires X which requires one python) and I 
> want to work in and run with the  standard OS X look and feel.
>
> I spend literally hours every month or two trying (unsuccessfully) to 
> get the various systems to co-exist and the result is not  pretty.  At 
> the moment, idle doesn't work anywhere, at all.   Here's the tip of my 
> iceberg.  Suggestions welcome.
>> 208-186-56-189:~ jis$ idle
>> -bash: /sw/lib/python2.3/idlelib/idle.py: Permission denied
>> 208-186-56-189:~ jis$ sudo idle
>> Password:
>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>   File "/sw/bin/idle", line 3, in ?
>>     from idlelib.PyShell import main
>>   File 
>> "/sw/src/root-python23-2.3.4-2/sw/lib/python2.3/idlelib/PyShell.py", 
>> line 11, in ?
>>   File "/sw/lib/python2.3/threading.py", line 13, in ?
>>     from traceback import print_exc as _print_exc
>> ImportError: cannot import name print_exc
>>

Bob replied
>
>> There is definitely something wrong with your Fink installation of 
>> Python, which probably has no relevance to having multiple Python 
>> installations.  I stay miles away from Fink, because terrible things 
>> have happened every time I've tried it, so I don't know what the 
>> problem is specifically.  It's especially troubling to see that 
>> "idle" and "sudo idle" has different behavior.  I suggest reporting 
>> these issues to the relevant maintainers for the Fink packages.  That 
>> permission denied error looks like something is missing a +x and/or 
>> the "idle" shell script is not correct
>>
>> For what it's worth, I haven't had any such problems with Darwinports 
>> and its Python... however, VPython isn't available from Darwinports 
>> at this time, so it's probably not of much use to you yet.
>>
>> -bob

I'll look for the Fink maintainers.   For what its worth I came across 
a seemingly related set of issues last night while trying to get apache 
to run python cgis.  Our solution was to rewrite the #! lines as
#! /sw/bin/env /sw/bin/python (the magic was in adding the first 
phrase).  Related discusssion and alternative solutions is at  
http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracOnOsx

Jon said
>
> The ideal would of course be a single python.  But failing that would 
> be a single installer that would put in place the two (or even more) 
> pythons needed in a manner that allowed one to work and install new 
> modules as needed, without risking obscure disasters.
>

Jack said
> This is a known problem, which is explained in Mac/OSX/Dist/README:
>> Currently (November 2003) there is still a bug in the build procedure
>> for $DESTROOT builds: building some of the applets will fail (in
>> ``Mac/OSX/Makefile``) if you don't have the same version of Python 
>> installed
>> normally. So before doing the distribution you should build and 
>> install
>> a framework Python in the normal way.
>
> Unfortunately, the problem is rather difficult to fix. buildapplet (or 
> py2app, or similar tools) will need to be told that we're in a 
> destroot install situation, so that if it wants filenames it should 
> use the non-destrooted version but if it actually needs the data 
> that's in the files it should use the destrooted filename.
>
> I can live with the current workaround for MacPython installers, if 
> it's a problem for darwinports file a bugreport and a solution may be 
> available sooner:-)
> --
> Jack Jansen, <Jack.Jansen at cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
> If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma 
> Goldman

Jon sighs...
Unfortunate indeed.  You can live with it, and I don't even understand 
your explanation. ;-/

Its ironic that the python community values such elegance in the 
language yet tolerates such complexity in context.  I presume  that's 
because there's no alternative.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jon Schull, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Information Technology
Rochester Institute of Technology
102 Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, New York 14623
schull at digitalgoods.com 585-738-6696
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