[Python-Dev] Integrating the PEP 397 launcher (original) (raw)

Vinay Sajip vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk
Fri Mar 30 02:22:04 CEST 2012

Brian Curtin <brian python.org> writes:

Vinay - is the code you have on bitbucket ready to roll into CPython, thus into the installer?

I believe the main C launcher code is ready to roll into CPython. However, the standalone installer I provide uses WiX rather than msilib, and includes additional executables for functionality like "associate .py with one of the installed Pythons" when the launcher is uninstalled, and for printing messages in certain contexts when installing. I believe there needs to be a little more thought given to how to bring the launcher into the main installer to see if we can either dispense with, or make suitable changes to, these ancillary functions.

I would appreciate some feedback from Martin about this - as far as I know he has not made any comments about launcher integration into the main installer.

The current launcher functionality (py[w].exe) is as outlined in the PEP + feedback from users (e.g. your recent suggestion to use LOCALAPPDATA rather than APPDATA).

The test harness may also need some thinking about - as the launcher executable is separate from Python, I'm not sure if it's appropriate just to create a "test_launcher.py" in Lib/test. To do a full test of the launcher you need multiple 2.x and 3.x versions installed, and I'm not sure if this could be done on existing Windows buildbots, for example. Of course it could be done with mocked executables and synthetically-added registry entries, but that isn't currently in place.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list