[Python-Dev] Corporate installations

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Tim Peters wrote:
> 
> Python is getting used widely enough in my place of employment that people
> are agitating for a common installation (personal variants are screwing
> people too often).  Various machines are running Win95, Win98, NT,
> Windows2000, assorted flavors of Linux, Solaris, Irix and MacOS.  I'll choke
> on that whole banana when it's shoved down my throat.
> 
> For starters, I just need to get it running across Windows platforms.  Never
> looked into this before, and it seems to be exceedingly complicated right
> out of the box <0.5 wink>:
> 
> D:\Python>python
> Python 1.5.2 (#0, Apr 13 1999, 10:51:12) [MSC 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
> Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
> >>> import sys
> ['',
>  'D:\\Python\\win32',
>  'D:\\Python\\win32\\lib',
>  'D:\\Python',
>  'D:\\Python\\Pythonwin',
>  'D:\\Python\\Lib\\plat-win',
>  'D:\\Python\\Lib',
>  'D:\\Python\\DLLs',
>  'D:\\Python\\Lib\\lib-tk',
>  'D:\\PYTHON\\DLLs',
>  'D:\\PYTHON\\lib',
>  'D:\\PYTHON\\lib\\plat-win',
>  'D:\\PYTHON\\lib\\lib-tk',
>  'D:\\PYTHON']
> >>>
> 
> Where does all that stuff come from?  The first is apparently the current
> directory; cool.  The next 4 appear to come from MarkH's stuff, via the
> registry.  The next 4 appear to come from Python's own registry PythonPath
> key.  The 4 after that are a mystery, and duplicate the preceding 4 (except
> for meaningless-- it's Windows <wink> -- case differences).  The last is
> another mystery.  site.py isn't implicated in any of them (same thing when
> running with -S).

On Linux I get:

['',
 '/home/lemburg/bin',
 '/home/lemburg/lib',
 '/home/lemburg/projects',
 '/home/lemburg/python/Lib/',
 '/home/lemburg/python/Lib/test',
 '/home/lemburg/python/Lib/plat-linux2',
 '/home/lemburg/python/Lib/lib-tk',
 '/home/lemburg/python/Modules',
 '/usr/local/lib/python1.5/site-packages']

It seems that the last entry refers to what Python thinks is the standard
location for system wide extensions. The first 3 come from my PYTHONPATH
setting, the next few are inserted by the Python startup code based
on what Python found as landmark to determine PYTHONHOME.

> I think this means I need to distribute a python15.dll and python.exe (via
> our source control system) into a directory very early on the PATH (other
> common .exe's are distributed this way, so no big deal), and add a
> sitecustomize.py that replaces all of sys.path with the Big Four
> (Lib\plat-win, Lib, DLLs, and Lib\lib-tk) expressed as UNC paths, + the
> common Dragon dir.

Sounds reasonable ;-)

> Network name mangling being what it is, I suppose I'll also need to force
> PYTHONCASEOK.  There's no way to do that from within Python, is there?  If
> not, everyone going through "unfortunate" paths in the network will have to
> set that themselves.

If Windows allows writing the process' environment you can set PYTHONCASEOK
dynamically: the check queries the environment for the flag prior
to every check (instead of doing going the usual internal Python flag
way as many of the others do). See Python/import.c:check_case() for details.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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