[Pythonmac-SIG] Re: [pygame] python + pygame on OSX

[Bob Ippolito]

On Feb 22, 2004, at 5:51 PM, Jack Jansen wrote:

>
> On 22-feb-04, at 3:14, Bob Ippolito wrote:
>
>> Stuff you should avoid if possible are:
>> 	runtime additions to sys.path
>> 	intermingling of code and data (keep them in separate folders, 
>> please)
>> 	using __file__ or similar mechanisms to find data (really a subissue 
>> of the previous)
>
> For the latter two we should invent something to help people. I know 
> it should be a general Python solution, but as none seems to be 
> forthcoming (lots of people have been asking about a way to access 
> data files, and the party line still seem to be "put them in your 
> package", even though that breaks with py2exe and zip imports and 
> such) we should roll our own, I think.
>
> We already have a working example in macresource, which solves a 
> similar problem (finding a resource file, if the resources don't 
> happen to be in the resource fork of the current executable already).
>
> For opening data files the API would have to be something different, 
> probably along the lines of filename = 
> datafile.datafilename("mydatafile.txt", "mymodule"), where 
> mydatafile.txt is first looked up in a directory specifically for 
> datafiles (where it would be found if the program was run as a .app 
> bundle), then in the same directory as mymodule.__file__.
>
> For OSX bundles the datafile-directory specified above would be 
> Contents/Resources, and people on other platforms using py2exe or 
> somesuch are free to tag on to the scheme and invent their own magic 
> location:-)

I agree completely, but it will also need some sort of manifest file so 
that bundlebuilder and py2exe know what data files are necessary.  A 
future version of distutils should do this (package receipt with enough 
metadata to determine what data is essential, and what data is just 
examples, tests, help files).  There's also the very real problem of 
getting package authors to change the way they're currently doing 
things, especially the ones with freakish distutils extensions like 
SciPy.  This isn't a real problem for pygame though, since I maintain 
the OS X port and have commit access.

I saw a system for including package resources (name eludes me at the 
moment) by converting the binaries to python code.. so that the 
resources ended up being Python strings(!!) on import.. I don't think 
this is a general solution, and it probably has the capability to 
increases memory consumption and load time considerably, but it *would* 
work as a hack ;)

In any case, would anyone like to implement this?  I am probably too 
busy to get around to it for a few weeks (and I honestly don't really 
want to write it), but I would be probably integrate it into 
bundlebuilder2 sooner than that if it sprung into existence.

-bob