Getting started with Python on Mac OS X Tiger

I upgraded Python 2.3 to Python 2.5 on my Macbook, and changed some symbolic links so that 2.5 is the default version when run from the command line. In backwards order, here is what I did.

Python is pre-installed on Mac OS X Tiger, but what version am I running and where is it?

Open a terminal window (bash command shell) and type “python”

$ python

Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jun  1 2008, 16:53:35)

[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Computer, Inc. build 5367)] on darwin

I’m running 2.5 now, but I wasn’t earlier. Ok, where is Python installed?

$ which python

/usr/bin/python

Is that the real location? No, it is a symbolic link.

$ ls -l /usr/bin/python*
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel      9 Jun 19 13:13 /usr/bin/python -> python2.5

lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     72 Oct 14  2006 /usr/bin/python2.3 -> ../../System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.3/bin/python

lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel     82 Jun 19 13:15 /usr/bin/python2.5 -> /opt/local/var/macports/software/python25/2.5.2_2+darwin_8/opt/local/bin/python2.5

As you can see, I changed “python” to point to python2.5. Previously it pointed to python2.3.

Where can I get Python 2.5 for Mac OS X Tiger? I used macports.

$ port install python25

this will put it in /opt/local/var/macports

$ port location python25

Port python25 2.5.2_2+darwin_8 is installed as an image in:

/opt/local/var/macports/software/python25/2.5.2_2+darwin_8