[Python-Dev] Python install layout and the PATH on win32 (original) (raw)

Mark Hammond skippy.hammond at gmail.com
Fri Mar 16 01:10:08 CET 2012

On 16/03/2012 10:48 AM, Carl Meyer wrote: ...

The implementation of virtualenv (and especially PEP 405 pyvenv) are largely based around making sure that the internal layout of a virtualenv is identical to the layout of an installed Python on that same platform, to avoid any need to special-case virtualenvs in distutils. The one exception to this is the location of the python binary itself in Windows virtualenvs; we do place it inside Scripts\ so that the virtualenv can be "activated" by adding only a single path to the shell PATH. But I would be opposed to any additional special-casing of the internal layout of a virtualenv ...

Unless I misunderstand, that sounds like it should keep everyone happy; there already is a special case for the executable on Windows being in a different place in an installed layout vs a virtual-env layout. Changing this to use "bin" instead of "Scripts" makes the virtualenv more consistent across platforms and doesn't impose any additional special-casing for Windows (just slightly changes the existing special-case :)

Thanks,

Mark

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