🌐 Mailman 3 February 2004 - Pythonmac-SIG - python.org

Upgrading /usr/bin/python to 2.3.1?
by Bill Janssen Feb. 10, 2004

Feb. 10, 2004

I've got a software package (gamera.sf.net) that claims to need 2.3.1 on MacOS. However, the python in /usr/bin/python is 2.3.0. 1. Can it be upgraded? 2. If not, can it be moved out of the way (/usr/libexec/ or whatever), and can I install a newer version in /usr/bin/? 3. Is Apple going to upgrade it with Software Upgrade? Bill

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Re: [Pythonmac-SIG] Upgrading /usr/bin/python to 2.3.1?
by Bob Ippolito Feb. 9, 2004

Feb. 9, 2004

On Feb 9, 2004, at 2:40 PM, Mark Asbach wrote: >> otool is more than just the 'counterpart to ldd'.. but I don't >> understand what your easy-to-use wrapper would actually do. Do you >> mean it wouldn't be hard to cross-reference the symbol table of an >> extension bundle with Python.framework to see if there is any case #1 >> happening? That's not hard, but I wouldn't call it a conflict, and >> it can be checked just by relinking with the current options. > > I just thought, it would be nice to give end-users a chance to > discover duplicate symbol names easily, so they could check if #2 had > happened because of installing a module with "-undefined lookup" and > to other modules with conflicting names. Names don't conflict in this scenario unless you're colliding with symbols from Python.framework itself. There are no other possible cases (assuming you're doing things correctly otherwise). >> 2) You managed to link something that overrides a symbol in >> Python.framework and the bundle looks up the wrong one (this is >> extremely unlikely because everything in Python is PyPrefixed and I >> think the search order would find Python.framework first, anyway). > > Wouldn't "-undefined lookup" also make other dependencies remain > unresolved at static link time? Say, you have three modules named A, B > and C. A and B have duplicate symbol names, C depends on A and was > linked with "-undefined lookup". Couldn't it happen that C will be > linked to B's symbols erroneously? No. When you link to a module, you only get its symbols, not the symbols it uses from other modules. If you are module C and you link to A, you only see symbols that were defined originally in A (except in umbrellas, but I won't get into that). >> BTW: OS X has namespaces for modules, even in C > > Ah, that's the two-level namespace thing?!? If have to admit, that OS > X is still a deep black box to me in some respects ... Yes, there is a namespace for every file that you link to. >> It's also extremely unlikely to have bizarre "symbol conflicts" in >> Python code, because other operating systems do not have two level >> namespaces for symbols. > > But on other OSes you won't link with "-undefined lookup", but have an > RPATH set, right? We're not talking about other OSes. These linker flags don't even exist elsewhere.. and it's "-undefined dynamic_lookup" -bob P.S. To anyone who has the spare time, please read the man pages for dyld and ld and become familiar with otool and install_name_tool as well as their man pages. Apple has additional documentation in HTML as well that may also be of use. If you don't read the man pages, you probably won't understand this system and the tools. I do my best to convey what's needed, but I'm not a technical writer. Remember, this is an entirely different dynamic linking system than linux/bsd or win32, so don't assume you know anything about it... I can't stress that enough.

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Swig_for_Mac
by Christopher Smith Feb. 9, 2004

Feb. 9, 2004

Hello, I'm trying to use an extension I've downloaded (APSE, a "Python port of the String::Approx module written for perl by Jarkko Hietaniemi."). I downloaded Swig_for_Mac 1.3.11 and am trying to figure out how to make one of the examples work before I try to process the apse.c file. I start up Swig_for_Mac and set the source to be the example.i file and press run. A wrapper file is produced, example_wrap.c. Now I don't know what to do from here. I am having a hard time sifting out what can/should be done with the Swig_for_Mac and what must be done at the command line with gcc. One of the pages that I've consulted says to issue a gcc compile of the example.c and example_wrap.c files. When I do that I get the following output: csmith% gcc -c example.c example_wrap.c -I/usr/local/include/python2.2 -I/usr/local/include/python2.2 example_wrap.c:27: header file 'string.h' not found example_wrap.c:203: header file 'stdlib.h' not found [and a whole lot more!] I don't have anything related to python in the usr/local/include directory so I'm not surprised I get a lot of error messages--there is only a 'dlfcn.h' file in that directory. On the other hand, I don't know which path I should be specifying. I am using version 2.2 of python: csmith% python Python 2.2 (#1, 07/14/02, 23:25:09) [GCC Apple cpp-precomp 6.14] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. Being a bit unix-unsavvy, I almost never run it from the command line; I always run it through the IDE. My objective is to be able to use the APSE.c file's functions. I assume that I have to use SWIG in some manner to do that. If you can help me get it running (or suggest another way to be able to access the apse.c function) I would appreciate it. /c

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Fw: OSCON Reminder: proposal deadline *** TODAY ***
by Kevin Altis Feb. 9, 2004

Feb. 9, 2004

Guido said: This is the FINAL reminder: you still have all day today to submit a proposal for the Python 12 Conference at OSCON: The O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) will be held July 26-30, 2004 at the Portland Marriott Downtown in Portland, OR. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2004/ Proposals Submission Information--Deadline: February 9, 2004 http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2004/create/e_sess --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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bundlebuilder2 preview
by Bob Ippolito Feb. 8, 2004

Feb. 8, 2004

I've put together a preview release of my bundlebuilder revisions and macholib: http://undefined.org/python/macholib-v2.0a0.tgz Changes: Finds dyld/frameworks that extensions use and automatically includes them for --(semi-)standalone (i.e. Tcl/Tk). Will include anything that doesn't live in /System Rewrites Mach-O load commands (for dylds, frameworks, and the python binary) when using --(semi-)standalone Validates keyword arguments for "buildapp.py" purposes Changed command line parser to use optparse instead of getopt (I think I want to refactor this some more though). In doing so, I changed the --file syntax to take two arguments instead of a colon delimited argument. Doesn't care what the Python framework is called (i.e., tested against a Python framework called Stackless.framework) Depends on macholib TODO: analyze packages to see if they have necessary data files (that have to be included whole, or at least not zipimport) zipimport toggle warn user and fallback to --semi-standalone when trying to --standalone a /System python GUI TODO (but YAGNI for me, so don't hold your breath): give it toggles to ignore certain kinds of files when making the bundle (think .cvsignore) non-framework python not tested/supported /usr/bin/strip functionality untested, may be broken toggle to turn mach-o header walking off allow user to exclude libs/frameworks make it easy/possible to strip headers/resources for automatically included frameworks documentation (but it exposes the same API and CLI args with few exceptions..) Note that a lot of (but not all of) this crazy header rewriting would be avoided if http://python.org/sf/887242 was adopted.. because most extensions currently link against Python.framework directly and need to be rewritten for --standalone. Also note that it's possible (but not demonstrated) to use macholib to migrate a python extension from one Python to another, but probably not possible to convert an existing bundle to an "-undefined dynamic_lookup" bundle (I have yet to examine an extension linked like this). -bob

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advanced newbie questions
by steve harley Feb. 7, 2004

Feb. 7, 2004

i'm learning Python, evaluating it for replacing a workflow that is now half in Visual FoxPro, half in UserLand Frontier (running in Virtual PC & Classic respectively under Mac OS X 10.3.2).. given that i find both of those environments very fluid and powerful, but dislike having to use VPC and Classic, Python looks very promising.. it has a coding feel much like Frontier, though i miss coding in an outliner; has anyone found a way to do this for Python, which is so obviously suited? since the Frontier part of this workflow heavily exercises the AE capabilities of publishing apps, i was curious to see how Python stacked up.. i read through the recent thread on abstracting the AE functionality, and a few other threads, and got the impression that there are multiple paths, and all are essentially in beta.. by the way, coming from strong familiarity with Mac scripting, that thread really helped me grasp the richness of Python, as it touched on several under-the-hood aspects that intro texts ignore anyhow, AppScript looked like the easiest transition from Frontier's object model, so i got the latest version and installed it.. i immediately found a dependency on launchservices.py, so i installed the latest SourceForge version now i'm stuck just instantiating an application object.. test.py contains: import AppScripting as AS Finder = AS.app ("Finder") and gives this error when i run it: % pythonw test.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 2, in ? Finder = AS.app ("Finder") File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/Main.py", line 141, in app targetDesc, aeteList, aeTable = _prepareApp(appPathOrName) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/Main.py", line 122, in _prepareApp appPath = _fullPathToApp(appPathOrName) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/Main.py", line 18, in _fullPathToApp return LaunchServices.FindApplicationPath(name=appPathOrName) AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'FindApplicationPath' seeing a path problem, i tried "/Applications/Finder.app" and got a somewhat similar error: % pythonw test.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 2, in ? Finder = AS.app ("/Applications/Finder.app") File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/Main.py", line 141, in app targetDesc, aeteList, aeTable = _prepareApp(appPathOrName) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/Main.py", line 123, in _prepareApp targetDesc = AEInterface.establishConnection(appPath) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/AEInterface.py", line 81, in establishConnection targetDesc = _makeAEAddressDesc(appPath) File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/AEInterface.py", line 32, in _makeAEAddressDesc return _makeAddressDescByAppSig(appPath) # TO DO: other ways of creating AEAddressDescs File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/lib/ python2.3/site-packages/AppScripting/AEInterface.py", line 37, in _makeAddressDescByAppSig sig = LS.GetInfoForPath(appPath, LS.LSRequestedInfo.kLSRequestTypeCreator)['creator'] AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'GetInfoForPath' in both cases it looks like the problem is in a LaunchServices call.. can someone tell me what's going wrong here? should i be using some kind of package management tool? assuming i can get past this i have some other questions: i see some people have trouble getting the dictionary from iTunes.. is AppScript able to do this? if not which AE package should i use? (i'm using a small iTunes-related project as an evaluation tool) i need some practical advice for persistent storage needs.. unfortunately my workflow depends heavily on both relational and object paradigms (SQL in Visual FoxPro, object databases in Frontier; both *highly* integrated) for relational purposes, easiest for me would be SQL back end; bearing in mind i'm used to completely integrated, inline SQL, with little fiddling or setup required, are there any gotchas or strong positives (from the Python on Mac OS X perspective) for MySQL or Postgres? is there some other approach which would let me do complex joins and many-to-many relations? for object storage, i get the impression there are various "object serialization" approaches.. since i'd probably eventually use PyObjC to build interfaces, i'd also consider a Cocoa-based approach.. from either the pure Python or Cocoa sides, is there one that stands out? what are the performance considerations? (most of my objects are probably smaller than 10KB) for either of these storage needs, are there good abstraction libraries so that i could switch storage types later if needed? thanks very much

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Using Carbon for files; a brief intro
by Russell E. Owen Feb. 7, 2004

Feb. 7, 2004

I just had to figure out how to use Carbon to obtain the preferences folder and thought I'd share what I learned. I hope to find time to put some of this into the Carbon docs someday, but right now time is short. The first step is to look at Apple's docs, as the MacOS Toolbox docs say: <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos8/mac8.html> The important modules are as follows. Note that only the last of these is listed in the Python manual. I ended up finding these by searching through the source code looking for constants I needed. The lesson: if you are going to use Carbon, print dir(Carbon) and also have the source around so you can search it. But I digress...the important modules for files and folders are: - Carbon.File: File Manager routines - Carbon.Files: constants for File Manager routines - Carbon.Folder: Folder Manager routines - Carbon.Folders: constants for Folder Manager routines Also note that FSSpec objects have methods that implement some of the File Manager routines (very nice). There is an alternate means of referring to files, FSRref objects, which do not have any methods. I am not sure the tradeoffs for using one or the other. I ended up using FSSpec objects. Once you have an FSRef, what do you do with it? You can query information with FSGetCatalogInfo, but I have no idea how to interpret most of it (for example how to convert the dates to Python times). The most useful thing I found was the function Carbon.File.pathname, which converts FSSpecs and FSRefs (and "str" or "unicode") to a path that can be used in Python (e.g. the os module). Here is the code I ended up with: """Utilities for finding standard Mac directories. """ import Carbon.File, Carbon.Folder, Carbon.Folders import MacOS def findFolder(domain, dirType): """Return a path to the specified standard directory or None if not found. The path is in unix notation for MacOS X native python and Mac colon notation for Carbon python, i.e. the form expected by the os.path module. Inputs: - domain: one of the domain constants found in Carbon.Folders, such as kUserDomain, kLocalDomain or kSystemDomain. - dirType: one of the type constants found in Carbon.Folders, such as kPreferencesFolderType or kTrashFolderType. """ try: fsref = Carbon.Folder.FSFindFolder(domain, dirType, False) return Carbon.File.pathname(fsref) except MacOS.Error: return None def getPrefsDir(): """Return a path to the user's preferences folder or None if not found. """ return findFolder(Carbon.Folders.kUserDomain, Carbon.Folders.kPreferencesFolderType) def getAppSuppDirs(): """Return a list of paths to the user's and local (shared) application support folder. If a folder does not exist, it is omitted; hence returns [] if nothing found. """ retDirs = [] for domain in Carbon.Folders.kUserDomain, Carbon.Folders.kLocalDomain: path = findFolder(domain, Carbon.Folders.kApplicationSupportFolderType) if path != None: retDirs.append(path) return retDirs

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yield keyword in BBedit not colored
by Samuel M. Smith Feb. 6, 2004

Feb. 6, 2004

I just noticed that the new yield keyword does not get proper syntax coloring in BBedit 7.1.2. Is there a new python language module for BBedit that recognizes the new keyword?

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items vs. documents in Safari suite
by Mark Eichin Feb. 5, 2004

Feb. 5, 2004

Using Panther, and the stock gensuitemodule, I've finally gotten some little applescripts rewritten in python. However, some of the things I had to fight with lead me to some questions... 1) I ended up doing s = Safari.Safari() items = Safari.items(1) ndocs = s.count(items, each=Safari.document) I found this mostly by trial and error - given the iCal examples in various presentations, I expected to use Safari.documents(1), or likewise Safari.windows(1), each=Safari.window - but none of these work, instead I get aetools.Error: (6, 'Device not configured', None) I can move forward with items(1), but could anyone explain (a) why (b) what I might have read to figure that out? 2) In the above error, the 6 is certainly the errn value, but the string in question comes from the unix errno space, and has nothing to do with the problem. Where should that string have really come from? 3) is Selection = s.do_JavaScript("getSelection()", in_=Safari.documents(1)) *really* the only way to find the current selection via AppleScript? I ask because it doesn't get any markup, whereas StickyBrain (for example) runs from a context menu and *does* get rich text for the selection, and that's what I'm aiming for. Actually, it looks like StickyBrain does an Edit->Copy, and gets the RichText from the clipboard, how do I talk to that with ae*? 4) Is there a trick to figuring out the raw event operations that a given chunk of AppleScript produces? I can find lots of AppleScript examples, and if I could take something like "repeat with i from 1 to the count of documents" and figure out what it was really doing, it would be a lot easier to come up with python equivalents. Maybe some kind of AppleEvent tracer, or disassembler? Thanks. _Mark_ <eichin(a)metacarta.com> ps. I used pythonw -c 'import gensuitemodule; gensuitemodule.main()' --output Safari /Applications/Safari.app to generate the Safari import; is there a cleaner way to say that?

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Podpourri for iPod owners
by Dinu Gherman Feb. 4, 2004

Feb. 4, 2004

Hi, I've just overhauled my Podpourri app, a tool for iPod owners after discovering it burned on a magazine CD-ROM two days ago... It's now completely reimplemented in PyObjC and works internally much smarter than before (if it worked at all ;-). As of now Podpourri will extract iPod songs based on a regular ex- pression search into a directory and nothing else. I've stripped of two former features, XML and PDF export, since iTunes now exports XML itself and the PDF thing was always more of a joke. BTW, does someone know an iTunes-like tool to play songs on a Mac directly from a connected iPod? iTunes seems to still prevent this for whatever ideological reasons... More off-topic, I'd be interested to know if iTunes can handle more than one connected iPod at once in some useful (?) way... OK, here it is: http://python.net/~gherman/Podpourri.html Have fun, Dinu -- Dinu C. Gherman - http://python.net/~gherman ...................................................................... "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." (Alan Kay)

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