[Python-Dev] Usefulness of site-python? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Wed Oct 23 17:14:05 CEST 2013

On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 2:46 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

Hello, I've just discovered there is a little-known feature in site.py: if a $PREFIX/lib/site-python exists (e.g. /usr/lib/site-python), it is added to sys.path in addition to the versioned site-packages. But only under Unix ("if os.sep == '/'"). Has anyone seen that feature in the real world? Debian doesn't use site-python, but its own /usr/share/pyshared. For the record, it was added in b53347c8260e with the following commit message: user: Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> date: Wed Sep 03 21:41:30 1997 +0000 files: Lib/site.py description: Give in to Mike Meyer -- add both lib/python1.5/packages and lib/site-python to the path (if they exist). This is a reasonable compromise.

Wow, a blast from the past. I don't see python-dev archives from those times but I'm sure there must have been discussion about whether site-packages were shareable between Python versions. I think history has shown that it's better to install them per version, so I suggest that we remove that feature. (People who want it can always patch up their own $PYTHONPATH.)

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