[Distutils] Access to Python config info
Greg Stein
gstein@lyra.org
Tue, 22 Dec 1998 12:42:46 -0800
John Skaller wrote:
> ...
> > def has_symlinks():
> > global has_symlinks
> > import os
> > if hasattr(os, "symlink"):
> > has_symlinks = true
> > return 1
> > else:
> > has_symlinks = false
> > return 0
>
> Obviously, this does not work. It tests if there is
> a symlinks attribute in os, not what should be tested:
>
> 1) if there is an attribute symlinks, it works according to spec
> 2) if there is not, then the os doesn't support symlinks
>
> To perform (1) would require actually creating some symlinks,
> and seeing if they 'worked'. This is what autoconf does;
No. If it is there, then it should work. If it doesn't, then ask Guido
what he'd like to do. His answer will be one of:
1) it should be removed for that platform
2) it will stay; test sys.platform to determine whether it will work.
There is no reason for anything to code defensively against the standard
distribution library. There is no need to second-guess all of its
modules and functions.
[trimming the rest of this email note]
Can you send around a URL to the interscript online doc? And when you
refer to it, could you please cite a more specific reference? Call it a
character flaw, but I'm not going to just blindly go read a bunch of
doc. A concrete reference helps (me, at least) provide some
focus/structure to why I'm there reading the thing in the first place.
Cheers,
-g
--
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/