[Python-Dev] PYTHON3PATH (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Thu Jan 14 22:02:28 CET 2010

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

Nick Coghlan wrote:

Guido van Rossum wrote:

On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 9:57 AM, ssteinerX at gmail.com > Or, how about just removing the antiquated use of environment variables altogether from Python 3 and avoid the issue completely.

-1. They have their use, but more in controlled situations. If you have "global" env vars that you only want to use with Python 2.x, write a wrapper for Python 3 that invokes it with -E. Perhaps a case can be made for Python 3 to assume -E by default, with a -e option to enable reading of the environment variables? That way naive users could run Python3 without tripping over existing Python2 environment variables, while other tools could readily set up a different environment before launching Python3. Naive users won't have PYTHONPATH or any other Python environment variables setup.

I was actually thinking of the situation where the OS had a preinstalled Python 2 with a default PYTHONPATH setting and the user was playing with Python 3.

However, I agree that that is a fairly unlikely scenario (since preinstalled Pythons tend not to rely on the environment variables and a user sophisticated enough to be playing with a new Python interpreter should be able to cope with a few environment variable conflicts anyway).

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list