8.49. Python-3.9.2

The Python 3 package contains the Python development environment. It is useful for object-oriented programming, writing scripts, prototyping large programs, or developing entire applications.

Approximate build time: 2.8 SBU
Required disk space: 294 MB

8.49.1. Installation of Python 3

First, a header file needs to be fixed:

sed 's|cpython/||' -i Include/cpython/pystate.h

Prepare Python for compilation:

./configure --prefix=/usr       \
            --enable-shared     \
            --with-system-expat \
            --with-system-ffi   \
            --with-ensurepip=yes

The meaning of the configure options:

--with-system-expat

This switch enables linking against system version of Expat.

--with-system-ffi

This switch enables linking against system version of libffi.

--with-ensurepip=yes

This switch enables building pip and setuptools packaging programs.

Compile the package:

make

To test the results, issue:

make test

Some tests requiring a network connection or additional packages are skipped. The test named test_normalization is known to fail. For more comprehensive results, the tests can be rerun when Python 3 is reinstalled in BLFS.

Install the package:

make install

If desired, install the preformatted documentation:

install -v -dm755 /usr/share/doc/python-3.9.2/html 

tar --strip-components=1  \
    --no-same-owner       \
    --no-same-permissions \
    -C /usr/share/doc/python-3.9.2/html \
    -xvf ../python-3.9.2-docs-html.tar.bz2

The meaning of the documentation install commands:

--no-same-owner and --no-same-permissions

Ensure the installed files have the correct ownership and permissions. Without these options, using tar will install the package files with the upstream creator's values.

8.49.2. Contents of Python 3

Installed Programs: 2to3, idle3, pip3, pydoc3, python3, and python3-config
Installed Library: libpython3.9.so and libpython3.so
Installed Directories: /usr/include/python3.9, /usr/lib/python3, and /usr/share/doc/python-3.9.2

Short Descriptions

2to3

is a Python program that reads Python 2.x source code and applies a series of fixes to transform it into valid Python 3.x code

idle3

is a wrapper script that opens a Python aware GUI editor. For this script to run, you must have installed Tk before Python so that the Tkinter Python module is built

pip3

The package installer for Python. You can use pip to install packages from Python Package Index and other indexes

pydoc3

is the Python documentation tool

python3

is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language