[Python-Dev] Python 3 as a Default in Linux Distros (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Wed Jul 24 17:45:28 CEST 2013

On 25 July 2013 01:41, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

How's this for an updated wording in the abstract:

* for the time being, all distributions should ensure that python refers to the same target as python2 * however, users should be aware that python refers to python3 on at least Arch Linux (that change is what prompted the creation of this PEP), so "python" should be used in the shebang line only for scripts that are source compatible with both Python 2 and 3 That's what the previous bullet point was trying to say, but it wasn't very clear, since the first half of the sentence was aimed at distributions, while the second was aimed at end users.

I'll also note that this is deliberately consistent with the behaviour of the "py" launcher on Windows (as defined in PEP 397): if you invoke that from the command with both Python 2.x and Python 3.x installed, it will default to using the most recently released version of Python 2, unless you pass a "-3" on the command line, or the shebang line indicates the script is a Python 3 script.

Cheers, Nick.

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

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