How to force creation of a .pyc?

[Jeffrey Schwab]

mrstephengross wrote:
> I would like to distribute a python program, but only in .pyc form (so
> that people cannot simply look at my code). Is there a way to do this?
> I've read up a little on the logic by which python creates .pyc's, and
> it sounds like python requires the main executed program to be in .py
> format. Any ideas?

Make a dummy script to import your main module.  The resulting pyc can 
be fed directly to the Python interpreter.

<---------------------------------------------------------------------->
# main.py : My main source code.  I cleverly will distribute only the
# byte code, such that no one knows my secrets.  D'oh!  You caught me
# monologging again...

if __name__ == "__main__":
	print "Ha!  Now you can't see me."
<---------------------------------------------------------------------->
# dummy.py : Imports the main module to create main.pyc.

import main
<---------------------------------------------------------------------->
[some client's prompt]% python main.py
Ha!  Now you can't see me.