[Python-Dev] __pycache__ creation

[Ron Adam]

Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> Isaac Morland <ijmorlan <at> uwaterloo.ca> writes:
>>> IMO, all these issues militate for putting __pycache__ creation out of
>>> the interpreter core, and in the hands of third-party package-time/
>>> install-time tools (or distutils).
>> Speaking only for myself, but really for anybody who likes tidy source 
>> directories, I hope some version of the __pycache__ proposal becomes part 
>> of standard Python, by which I ideally mean it's enabled by default but if 
>> that is just not a good idea then at most it should be required to set a 
>> command-line option to get this feature.
> 
> This doesn't contradict by my proposal.
> 
> What I am proposing is that the creation of __pycache__ /directories/ be put
> outside of the core. It can be part of distutils, or of a separate module, or
> delegated to third-party tools. It could even be as simple as
> "python -m compileall --pycache", if someone implements it.
> 
> Creation of the __pycache__ /contents/ (files inside the directory) would still
> be part of core Python, but only if the directory exists and is writable by the
> current process.

+1

If I understand correctly, we would have the current mode as the default, 
and can trigger __pycache__ behavior simply by manually creating a 
__pycache__ directory and deleting any byte-code files in the 
module/program directory.

I like this, it is easy to understand and can be used without messing with 
flags or environment variables.

Ron