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Debian Python Policy - Python Packaging
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Debian Python Policy
Chapter 1 - Python Packaging
1.1 Versions
At any given time, the package python will represent the current
default Debian Python version.
The default Debian Python version should alway be the latest stable upstream
release that can be integrated in the distribution.
Apart from the default version, legacy versions of Python or beta versions of
future releases may be included as well in the distribution, as long as they
are needed by other packages, or as long as it seems reasonable to provide
them. (Note: For the scope of this document, Python versions are synonymous to
feature releases, i.e. Python 2.0 and 2.0.1 are subminor versions of the same
Python version 2.0, but Python 2.1 and 2.2 are indeed different versions.)
For any version, the main package must be called
pythonX.Y.
The set of currently supported python versions can be found in
/usr/share/python/debian_defaults.
1.2 Main package
For every Python version provided in the distribution, the package
pythonX.Y shall comprise a complete
distribution for deployment of Python scripts and applications. The
package includes the binary
/usr/bin/pythonX.Y and all modules of the
upstream Python distribution.
Excluded are any modules that depend on non-required packages, they
will be provided in separate packages. Some tools and files for the
development of Python modules are split off in a separate package
pythonX.Y-dev. Documentation will be
provided separately as well.
At any time, the python package must contain a symlink
/usr/bin/python to the the appropriate binary
/usr/bin/pythonX.Y. The python
package must also depend on the appropriate
pythonX.Y to ensure this binary is
installed. The version of the python package must be greater than
or equal to X.Y and smaller than
X.Y+1.
1.3 Python Interpreter
1.3.1 Interpreter Name
Python scripts depending on the default Python version (see Main package, Section 1.2) or not depending on a specific
Python version should use python (unversioned) as the interpreter
name.
Python scripts that only work with a specific Python version must explicitly
use the versioned interpreter name
(pythonX.Y).
1.3.2 Interpreter Location
The preferred specification for the Python interpreter is
/usr/bin/python or
/usr/bin/pythonX.Y. This ensures that a
Debian installation of python is used and all dependencies on additional python
modules are met.
If a maintainer would like to provide the user with the possibility to override
the Debian Python interpreter, he may want to use /usr/bin/env
python or /usr/bin/env pythonX.Y.
However this is not advisable as it bypasses Debian's dependency checking and
makes the package vulnerable to incomplete local installations of python.
1.4 Module Path
The module search path for Debian has been amended to include a directory tree
in /usr/local at the beginning of the path. By default, sys.path is searched
in the following order:
/usr/lib/pythonXY.zip
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/plat-linux2
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/lib-tk
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/lib-dynload
/usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages
/var/lib/python-support/pythonX.Y
/usr/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/module-dir
/usr/lib/site-python
The use of the /usr/lib/site-python directory is deprecated. The
directory may be dropped from the path in a future version. The
/usr/lib/pythonXY.zip archive appeared in python2.3; it is not
currently used in Debian. Modules should not install directly to the
/var/lib/python-support directory; it is for use by python-support, Section B.1.
1.5 Documentation
Python documentation is split out in separate packages
pythonX.Y-doc. The package
python-doc will always provide the documentation for the default
Debian Python version.
TODO: Policy for documentation of third party packages.
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Debian Python Policy
version 0.4.1.0
Neil Schemenauer nas@debian.org
Matthias Klose doko@debian.org
Gregor Hoffleit flight@debian.org
Josselin Mouette joss@debian.org
Joe Wreschnig piman@debian.org
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