[Scons-users] Single binary SCons and byte-code caching

[Mats Wichmann]

On 3/10/22 13:25, Brad Kraemer wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm not very well versed in the Python ecosystem, but did note that
> their seem to be several projects which allow for a Python application
> to be packaged into a single binary (ELF or PE). Has anyone tried to do
> this with SCons? Perhaps not entirely self-contained (in the static
> sense) but at least a single launch point (where no pre-existing Python
> installation is present).

pyinstaller can pretty much do this. might need some work - there's a
hook mechanism you use to teach it about things it can't detect itself,
and some of the dynamic stuff scons does - umm, Tool importing in
particular comes to mind - might defeat it. That's just guessing, never
tried it.

> Somewhat related I've noticed Python byte-code spawning in my Tools
> directories. I realize there is a benefit to this byte-code being cached
> ahead of time, but this does feel like a implementation-from-design
> leak. As a workaround, I can (Python 3.3+) set the environment variable
> PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX to a better location which isn't within my Tools
> directories. As I look at this as a work around, I'm wondering if this
> couldn't be set by SCons itself when starting up (or equivalent Python
> functionality/variables)?

That's on behalf of the Python import system - keeping the bytecode
together with the source file (thankfully with Python 3 we at least get
a subdirectory) keeps the logic natural - if you find the .pyc there you
don't have to first compile the .py, but you don't want to go hunting
all over the place in the normal case.