On Wed, Dec 04, 2013 at 02:41:30PM -0500, Ralph Bean wrote:

Back in August, the {__python} macro was deprecated in favor of {__python2}. This is cool as it paves the way for an eventual python3 takeover.

https://fedoraproject.org/w/index.php?title=Packaging:Python&diff=350838...

However, {__python} is still the expected macro for el6 builds. Many of us maintain single spec files that we build for Fedora and EPEL.

• Does anyone have any recommendations about how to handle this?

Someone should take a look at the present guidelines but I think just using /usr/bin/python2 (or python2 and letting PATH do the rest) is probably okay.

I recently started using this blurb at the top of my new spec files. Will it do?

%if 0%{?rhel} && 0%{?rhel} <= 6
%{!?__python2:        %global __python2 %{__python}}
%{!?python2_sitelib:  %global python2_sitelib %(%{__python} -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib())")}
%{!?python2_sitearch: %global python2_sitearch %(%{__python} -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib(1))")}
%endif

it's probably more correct to do this this way:

%if 0%{?rhel} && 0%{?rhel} <= 6 %{!?__python2: %global __python2 /usr/bin/python2} %{!?python2_sitelib: %global python2_sitelib %(%{__python2} -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib())")} %{!?python2_sitearch: %global python2_sitearch %(%{__python2} -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib(1))")} %endif

• If we decide on a canonical approach, can it be added to the Python guidelines as a recommendation?

Yeah, but please draft it up. I'm low on time so even completing writing of the changes for this approved guideline change hasn't been something I've gotten too: https://fedorahosted.org/fpc/ticket/327#comment:9

-Toshio