[Python-Dev] compileall.py and make install

[Jeremy Hylton]

There are two related problems that I'd like to fix for the release
candidate.  One is that compileall.py basically ignores compiler
errors.  It's clear that the code intends to return with a non-zero
exit status if there are compilation errors, but it doesn't do that
currently.

If I fix just this problem, make install will start to fail because
there are six files in the test directory that contain intentional
SyntaxErrors; in one case, it's necessary that the SyntaxError be
raised through import.

I'd like to fix compileall.py and add an optional argument that tells
it to skip files that match a regular expression.  Then I'll rename
all the offending files so that they are named badsyntax_XXX and fix
the Makefile so that it installs them but does not compile them.

This is going to cause two problems for developers.  First, you'll
need to manually delete the files with the old names from the install
lib directory.  (I'll rename nocaret.py to badsyntax_nocaret.py, but,
if you've already done an install, you'll also have a nocaret.py in
the lib directory.)

The compileall script also traverses into site-packages.  If you have
compilation errors in code that you've installed into site-packages,
then make install will fail. 

I'm not sure what to do about this.  During development, at least, it
is probably helpful for make install to walk into site-packages and
fail if the new version of Python breaks existing code.  On the other
hand, it could be a big pain that you can't install Python just
because you previously installed a buggy Python library.  Of course,
you could just remove the broken code.

I think it's a net gain to make these changes.  Is anyone more
concerned that me about the possible breakage?

Jeremy