Re: [RFA] ignore PYTHONHOME environment variable.

[Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com>]

Hey Jan, Hey Doug,

I really apologize for the delay in getting back to this.

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 09:30:54AM -0800, Joel Brobecker wrote:
> > <jan.kratochvil@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > But PYTHONHOME=$HOME for some user overrides of system Python would
> > > no longer work.  What would $PYTHONHOME otherwise be useful for?
> > 
> > OTOH what if one wanted to debug a python with a different PYTHONHOME?
> > GDB_PYTHONHOME?  [not my idea, but seems reasonable]
> 
> I think you indeed need something like that. I don't think we can trust
> PYTHONHOME, because it might point to something that's incompatible.

Jan: Does your objection still stand, or are you satisfied if we add
a GDB_PYTHONHOME environment variable to control the Python home?

Note that, if PYTHONHOME was used purely to access user scripts, then
they should be using PYTHONPATH instead.

> But I think I would prefer something like this:
> 
>   if "GDB_PYTHONHOME" is defined
>     Py_SetPythonHome (getenv ("GDB_PYTHONHOME"));
>   #ifdef WITH_PYTHON_PATH
>     else
>       /* We override any value that the PYTHONHOME might have, as we want
>          to make sure that we use the Python library that comes with GDB.  */
>       Py_SetPythonHome (ldirname (python_libdir));
>   #endif
> 
> The latter makes GDB_PYTHONHOME always active, regardless of how
> GDB was linked against Python.

Doug: Does this seem reasonable to you?

-- 
Joel