[Pythonmac-SIG] why does the Mac installer hack the user's .bash_profile?

Bill Janssen janssen at parc.com
Thu Apr 7 22:48:34 CEST 2011


I've got a Snow Leopard buildslave I'm trying to debug.  So I thought
I'd try Python 2.7 on it.  Normally, I advise people to never try to
install a different Python on a Mac, as it's too embedded in the OS to
do safely, without a great deal of domain knowledge.  But here, I
figured I could always wipe the disk and start over without too much
loss.

So I ran the installer, and tried a few things, and it didn't solve my
buildbot problems.  So I decided to go back to the original System
python.  But now I find that the installer has put the 2.7 Python on my
PATH?!?  It does this apparently by hacking ~/.bash_profile.  In there,
there's a line saying

  The original version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave

a file which doesn't seem to exist.

So, why didn't I notice myself checking the checkbox to do this in the
first place, and where is my original .bash_profile file?

Bill


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