[Pythonmac-SIG] Upgrading to Python 2.4 and handling packages (e.g. Numeric, wxPython, etc.)

[Louis Pecora]

Info on converting over installed Python packages to non-Apple Python 
for those who are newbies or are not gurus (includes me):

Bob Ippolito was right.  When you upgrade to a non-Apple python you have 
to re-install all the "add-on" packages like Numeric.  You also have to 
set your paths in the Environment.plist in ~/.MacOSX since any .pth 
files you formerly used in the Apple distribution directories will not 
be used in the upgrade.  You can get new versions of packages to install 
from Bob Ippolito's site:  http://pythonmac.org/packages/.  Just be sure 
to choose the Framework builds for the system you have on your machine 
(Panther or Tiger). 

Many thanks to Bob Ippolito for supplying those packages.

If anyone upgrades and needs to use the kinds.py  package (which gives 
platform limits and sizes for floats, ints, etc.) see below for more 
info on how to get this to work in Python 2.4.


Reinstalling the kinds package.  I assume you already have the package 
in your Python files directory.  You need to reinstall it after you 
upgrade to Python 2.4.  Do this by opening the terminal, cd to the kinds 
folder and type

sudo python setup.py install

give the admin password when prompted.

That puts the needed files in the right place down in the /Library 
directory.  But you have to set up a path down in that directory so when 
you run Python it can find the files it needs for kinds (this is in 
addition to adding the path to the original kinds source directory where 
you ran the install script above).  Create the file kinds.pth with the 
single line in it,

kinds

Save and move this to the directory  
Drive/Library/Framework/Python.framework/Version/2.4/lib/python2.4/site-packages.  
That should do it. 


-- 
Cheers,

Lou Pecora

Code 6362
Naval Research Lab
Washington, DC  20375
USA
Ph:  +202-767-6002
email:  pecora at anvil.nrl.navy.mil