Newbie: where's the new python gone?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 09 Sep 2012 07:28:55 -0700, BobAalsma wrote:

> I think I've installed Python 2.7.3 according to the instructions in the
> README, and now want to use that version. However, when typing "python"
> in Terminal, I get "Python 2.6.4 (r264:75821M, Oct 27 2009, 19:48:32) ".

Did you run "make altinstall"? You should, because it is a bad idea to 
replace the system Python with a newer (or worse, older) version. You can 
break things.


> So:
> (1) I can't seem to find where the new software has gone

Just enter "python2.7" instead of "python" and it should work perfectly.


> and (2) can't
> seem to find how to point to this new versoin. I've searched Python.org

You won't find it there *wink*

At the terminal, enter:

which python2.7

which should return the full path to the executable, e.g.:

[steve at ando ~]$ which python2.7
/usr/local/bin/python2.7

My system uses Python 2.4 as the system Python, but I prefer to use 
Python 2.7 as my default. So I have this command in my .bashrc file:

alias python='python2.7'

which means that *for me*, "python" launches Python 2.7, but when system 
tools call "python" they still see the version they are expecting.

If your shell is something other than bash, you may need to use a 
different rc file.

Did any of this make sense to you? If anything was unclear, please don't 
hesitate to ask.



-- 
Steven