Any way to not create .pyc files?

[Paul McNett]

Lonnie Princehouse wrote:
> Is there any way to run Python WITHOUT trying to create .pyc files (or
> .pyo) or to have Python not attempt to import the .pyc files it finds?

You could roll your package into a zip archive and then import that. For 
instance, keep your main.py out of the archive and put everything else 
in. Then, at the top of main.py:

import sys
sys.path.insert("network_path/package.zip")

import package
# do normal stuff with package here.

As long as you zipped up the package will all .pyc and .pyo files 
removed, Python will have no choice but to compile the files every time 
they are imported - unless I'm grossly mistaken Python won't put the pyc 
files into the zip archive, or modify any that were there already.

As far as the maintenance headache of distributing updated copies to 
individual workstations, IMO this just requires a little forethought and 
then it isn't a headache at all. Instead of the users starting the 
application directly, they could start a starter application that checks 
with the server to determine if local files need to be updated, and if 
so grab them and then start the main app. This actually removes 
headaches in the Windows world, where you can't drop-in updates to 
programs that are currently running.

What I've done in the past adds on to the starter application idea, and 
has the main application check to see if there are updates to the 
starter application, and if so pull those changes down upon exit of the 
main application. I just saved the file locations locally in an INI file.

-- 
Paul McNett
http://paulmcnett.com