Links

• TODO
  • I currently install a custom (idempotent and identical) /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/sitecustomize.py, /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sitecustomize.py, etc. in every installation on every platform.
    • Switch to using usercustomize.py and sitecustomize.py
    • This will break python 2.4 compatibility
• distutils
• Environment variables
• pymotw: sysconfig – Interpreter Compile-time Configuration
• site module
  • addsitedir
    • For OS X, a usercustomize.py in the Framework user dir (/Users/chirayu/Library/Python/2.7) to addsitedir() ~/.local (verify is this can also set USER_SITE to ~/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages) may be the way to go to reconcile the two different user site paths.
  • PYTHONUSERBASE
• user installation scheme
• PEP 370 – Per user site-packages directory
• Running code at Python startup
• pymotw: Modules and Imports
• pymotw: site
• pymotw: Python Runtime Services
• User (root/sudo free) installation of Python modules.
• What's the proper way to install pip, virtualenv, and distribute for Python?
  • NO. NEVER EVER do 'sudo python setup.py install' whatever. Write a ~/.pydistutils.cfg that puts your pip installation into ~/.local or something. Especially files named 'ez_setup.py' tend to suck down newer versions of things like setuptools and easy_install, which can potentially break other things on your operating system. – Glyph

Bag

# What is sys.path, user base and user site?  Is user
# site enabled?
# % python -m site
# That pretty prints sys.path, USER_BASE, USER_SITE and
# if it's enabled.


# Where is the user library location
import site
print site.USER_BASE
# Prints: /Users/chirayu/Library/Python/2.7

# Where is the user site-packages location
print site.USER_SITE
# Prints: /Users/chirayu/Library/Python/2.7/lib/python/site-packages

# OR
#
# % python -m site --user-base 
#     /Users/chirayu/Library/Python/2.7
# % python -m site --user-site 
#     /Users/chirayu/Library/Python/2.7/lib/python/site-packages


# What is the platform?
# The preferred way is sysconfig.get_platform() which
# can fallback to platform.platform() – but they do have
# different return values.
#
#   >>> sysconfig.get_platform()
#   'macosx-10.7-x86_64'
#   >>> platform.platform()
#   'Darwin-11.3.0-x86_64-i386-64bit'


# What options were used to build this python?
pprint.pprint(sysconfig.get_config_vars())