[Python-Dev] PEP 405 (venv) - why does it copy the DLLs on Windows

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:57:02 +0000
Richard Oudkerk <shibturn at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 23/03/2013 10:06am, Paul Moore wrote:
> >> One example of a non-system-wide installation is a source build of Python.
> >> PEP 405 venvs created from a source build should work in the same way as venvs
> >> created using an installed Python.
> >
> > Thanks. I hadn't thought of that case. However, I'm still not entirely
> > clear *why* the DLLs need to be copied. I'll set up a source build and
> > test virtualenv against it to see if it fails. Assuming it does, I
> > should be able to work out what the issue is from that.
> 
> Also, couldn't hard links be used instead of copying?  (This will fail 
> if not on the same NTFS partition, but then one can copy as a fallback.)

Hard links are generally hard to discover and debug (at least under
Unix, but I suppose the same applies under Windows).

Regards

Antoine.