#!/usr/bin/env python vs. #!/usr/bin/python

[Erik Max Francis]

Ben Finney wrote:

> No, because it's quite common for the PATH variable to have
> '/usr/local/bin' appear *before* both of '/bin' and '/usr/bin'.
> 
> If the system has a sysadmin-installed '/usr/local/bin/python'
> installed as well as the OS-installed '/usr/bin/python', then the two
> shebang options the OP raised will behave differently on such a
> system. This seems to be quite the point of the discussion.

Yes, and that's the reason the env form is preferred.  If someone -- 
either the system administrator, or the user environment, or the person 
executing the program on the fly -- has changed the PATH, they did it 
for a reason.  If /usr/local/bin is in the PATH before /usr/bin, then 
that is a deliberate choice (whether system-wide or not) to prefer 
executables in /usr/local/bin to those in /usr/bin, and that is being 
done for a very conscious reason.  Which is why the PATH exists in the 
first place, and why invoking the script with env is preferable.


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