[gdal-dev] GDAL 1.5.0 Beta2 Released

[William Kyngesburye]

On Dec 11, 2007, at 1:15 PM, Christopher Barker wrote:

>> I can look into repackaging it standalone, probably one egg for  
>> Leopard/Python 2.5 and two installers for Tiger/Python 2.5 and  
>> Leopard/python 2.5.
>
> I'm confused. What's the difference between Leopard/Python 2.5 and  
> Leopard/python 2.5?
>
You mean Tiger and Leopard, right?  For Tiger, my build is for the  
universal Python 2.5.  For Leopard, my build is for the Apple-included  
Python 2.5.

>> In any case, that's a lot of options -- I'd just build one that is  
>> compatible with the Python2.5 Universal Framework Build that runs  
>> on 10.4 and 10.5 (and I think even 10.3.9).

It's not only a split of Universal Python vs. Leopard Python, but also  
a purely Tiger/Leopard issue.  I went the route of building explicitly  
and separately for each system version.  It's easier to compile that  
way, and to install.

>> Others are gravy, but there really are two darn many pythons on OS- 
>> X! I don't think you lose anything by using that Python -- except  
>> having to install it, but it's never really worked well to try to  
>> use Apple's Python -- most of us have simply given up.
>
I'm not sure what the problem is with Leopard's Python, if any.  There  
was some debate about it on the python list, but I don't remember any  
serious real issues (but then, a lot of the extensions that were  
discussed aren't of interest to me).  I trust Apple to stay with  
Python 2.5 thru the life of the OS version and not break things with a  
future 2.6 switch, and to fix current problems.  It looks to me like  
their python binaries are more than just something for the system to  
use (as supposed by many python users), and meant for people to run  
complex Python applications on.

I guess I'll see what happens when I try the GRASS python GUI on  
Leopard...

>> But since the python bindings are closely tied to the GDAL version,  
>> and in my builds to the OSX version, this may be more hassle than  
>> it's worth
>
> Well, that's a bit of a trick. The standard approach is to build  
> eggs with the dependencies statically linked -- so it's just one  
> thing to install, and it "just works". I assume this is what the  
> Windows ones do. I don't think you can have an egg depend on a non- 
> python thing like a Framework -- it makes you miss Linux packages  
> systems....
>
Actually, the windows eggs DO need an external gdal.  250K is way too  
small for the GDAL library, and there was a message on the list saying  
that the gdal dll is needed.  And there are a lot of support files  
that aren't built into the egg.  Not to mention format plugins and  
MANY dependencies that would bloat the python binaries.

>

It's the libraries (.so) in the egg that depend on the libraries, not  
the python scripts.

-----
William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos*at*kyngchaos*dot*com>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/

The equator is so long, it could encircle the earth completely once.