Archive:PackagingDrafts/Python3

Packaging Python modules for Python 3

I hope to add a parallel-installable Python 3 stack to Fedora 13.

See the feature page: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/Python3F13 and also this thread: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-October/msg00054.html

This requires us to come up with a sane way to package Python 3 modules, and this requires us to generalize our python packaging rules to support more than one python runtime.

The existing Python packaging guidelines are here: Packaging/Python

Multiples Python Runtimes

There will be multiple python runtimes, one for each supported major/minor release combination.

Each runtime corresponds to a binary of the form /usr/bin/python$MAJOR.$MINOR

One of these python runtimes is the "system runtime". It can be identified by the destination of the symlink /usr/bin/python. Currently this is /usr/bin/python-2.6

The output of "rpm -q --provides" of each runtime rpm MUST contain a line of the form:

 Provides: python(abi) = $MAJOR-$MINOR

For example, a python-3.1 runtime rpm should have this output:

 Provides: python(abi) = 3.1

Similarly, python modules using these runtimes should have a corresponding "Requires" line.

Layout

Proposed rule: All files with an extension of .py/.pyo/.pyc MUST be either

• within a runtime package, and below /usr/lib/python$MAJOR-$MINOR for that runtime, or
• for a specific runtime package, and below /usr/lib/python$MAJOR-$MINOR/site-packages for that runtime, or
• for the system python runtime.

For example, python code for the 3.1 runtime needs to be below /usr/lib/python3.1/site-packages

.pyo/.pyc files

Compiled .pyo/.pyc files embed a magic number, indicating which python version they are for; python libraries have a corresponding magic number.

Proposed rule: All .pyo/.pyc files below /usr/lib/python$MAJOR.$MINOR MUST have a magic number corresponding to that for /usr/bin/python$MAJOR.$MINOR

Thus e.g. /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/libxml2.pyc must have the same magic number as that of /usr/bin/python2.6

Similarly, /usr/lib/python3.1/site-packages/libxml2.pyc must have the same magic number as that of /usr/bin/python3.1

I've written an rpmlint test for this, which is now in upstream rpmlint SVN. See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=531102

Python modules for non-standard runtimes

(to be written)

Naming

Current python package naming guidelines are here: Packaging/NamingGuidelines#Addon_Packages_.28python_modules.29

• an rpm with a python- prefix means a python 2 rpm, of the "default" python 2 minor version (for Fedora this will be the most recent stable upstream minor release, for EPEL it will be the minor release of 2 that came with the distro, so 2.4 for EPEL5)
• an rpm with a python3- prefix means a python 3 rpm, of the "default" python 3 minor version (for Fedora this will be the most recent stable upstream release)

What about packages without a "python-" prefix?

See https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-python-devel-list/2009-October/msg00015.html for a list of F-12 packages emitted by

 repoquery -f '/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/*'

divided into 4 categories:

• Packages starting with 'python-'
• Packages starting with 'Py' or 'py' (but not 'python-')
• Packages ending with '-python':
• None of the above

Proposal: If upstream has a naming convention for python2 vs python3, use it. Otherwise, use a python3- prefix, followed by the name of the module that you type to import it in a script, even if this is inconsistent with the python 2 name of the rpm.

Rationale: this highlight the "threeness" of the packages, making it very clear which stack they are for. Python 3 and Python 2 are different stacks, so any inconsistencies aren't a serious problem.

Fedora python 2 package	Upstream name	Proposed python 3 package name
python-lxml	lxml	python3-lxml
pygtk2		python3-gtk
gstreamer-python		python3-gstreamer
gnome-python2	gnome-python	python3-gnome
rpm-python		python3-rpm

Common SRPM vs split SRPMs

There are two approaches I'm experimenting with to packaging modules for python 3:

• create an separate specfile/srpm for the python 3 version
• extend an existing specfile so that it emits a python3- subpackage as part of the build.

I've experimented with both approaches for python3-setuptools

Split/separate SRPMs: a src.rpm for python- and another for python3-

Given package python-foo in packaging CVS, there would be a separate python3-foo for the python 3 version. There would be no expectation that the two would need to upgrade in lock-step. (The two SRPMS could have different maintainers within Fedora: the packager of a python 2 module might not yet have any interest in python 3)

Example: python3-setuptools https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=531648 (simple adaptation of python-setuptools, apparently without needing an invocation of 2to3)

Advantages:

• if the python-foo maintainer doesn't care about python 3, he/she doesn't need to
• the two specfiles can evolve separately; if 2 and 3 need to have different versions, they can

Disadvantages:

• the two specfiles have to be maintained separately
• when upstream release e.g. security fixes, they have to be tracked in two places

Single shared SRPM emitting both python- and python3- subpackages

Examples:

• Emitting python3-setuptools as a subpackage from python-setuptools: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=531895
• Emitting python3-lxml as a subpackage from python-lxml: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=533290

Advantages:

• single src.rpm and build; avoid having to update multiple packages when things change.

Disadvantages:

• The Fedora maintainer needs to care about python 3. By adding python 3 to the mix, we're giving them extra work.
• 2 and 3 versions are in lockstep. Requires upstream to case about Python 3 as well (or for Python 2, for that matter)

When should we have two split SRPMs vs one shared, and vice versa?

The easy case is when upstream release separate tarballs for the python 2 and python 3 versions of code. In that case, it makes sense to follow upstream and have separate specfiles, separate source rpms, etc.

The more difficult case is when the python module is emitted as part of the build of a larger module.

One case is for an extension module giving python bindings for a library built within the larger rpm. Some examples:

• the build of rpm itself emits an rpm-python subpackage (see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=531543 )
• Another example is the postgres srpm, which emits a postgresql-python subpackage.
• libvirt

I believe the ideal here is to patch the code so that it will build against both python versions, then take a copy of the sources during the %prep phase, and configure one subdirectory to build against python 2, another to build against python 3.

Packaging

In python3-3.1.1-9 onwards the python3-devel subpackage will contain a /etc/rpm/macros.python3 file which will contain definitions of:

 __python3
 python3_sitelib
 python3_sitearch

which should thus make it unnecessary to define these in every module specfile (see https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=526126#c43 ).

Some possible best-practices for keeping python 2 and python 3 in sync:

• when packaging a module for python 3, you should approach the python 2 package owners.
• if separate maintainership for python 2 vs python 3 modules, you should request a watchbugzilla and watchcommit on each other's packages
• complete any python 2 Merge Review before doing a python 3 version
• add link to the python 2 Merge Review/Package Review to the python 3 Package Review