Re: Python package status

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Laszlo 'GCS' Boszormenyi wrote:

>  I would like to ask advice with Python. I have a package, which depends
> on it, and previously I depended on an exact version (2.3) thus altered
> the interpreter in each file to be python2.3 instead of generic python.
> It worked, but upstream put extra effort into that it should work with
> Python 2.0.0 or greater, thus I would like to change my package. As I
> see, python1.5 already removed from the archive, but I have the
> following questions:
> - can it be that python1.5 still lying around on older installations,
>   thus /usr/bin/python may point to it?

It can't if the system is running woody or sarge, because /usr/bin/python is
provided by the python package and it points to the "default python version".
The default python is 2.1 for woody and 2.3 for sarge. Your package will be
uploaded for unstable to be eventually part of sarge. You don't have
to worry about potato.

> - would it be good to depend only on python, without versioning, as
>   python1.5 is gone, or as the previous question implies python1.5 may
>   be around, so I should conflict with it?

I think it would be good to depend only on python, yes. No conflicts
are needed. The python package ensures that /usr/bin/python points to
a python version which is good enough.

> The root of my problems is that I don't see newer Python packages to
> conflict and replace the old Python, hence my email.

That's because the pythonX.Y packages are designed to be compatible.
Only the python package provides /usr/bin/python, which is a symlink.

There is a python policy that you should probably read. It says:

     At any time, the `python' package must contain a symlink
     `/usr/bin/python' to the the appropriate binary
     `/usr/bin/python<X>.<Y>'.  The `python' package must also depend on
     the appropriate `python<X>.<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>.

which means a "Depends: python (>= 2.1)" is probably all you need.