At the moment, we look for just "python3" and "python", which is good
enough almost all of the time. But ... if you are on a platform that
uses an older Python by default and only offers a newer Python as an
option, you'll have to specify --python=/usr/bin/foo every time.
We can be kind and instead make a cursory attempt to locate a suitable
Python binary ourselves, looking for the remaining well-known binaries.
This configure loop will prefer, in order:
1. Whatever is specified in $PYTHON
2. python3
3. python
4. python3.11 down through python3.6
Notes:
- Python virtual environment provides binaries for "python3", "python",
and whichever version you used to create the venv,
e.g. "python3.8". If configure is invoked from inside of a venv, this
configure loop will not "break out" of that venv unless that venv is
created using an explicitly non-suitable version of Python that we
cannot use.
- In the event that no suitable python is found, the first python found
is the version used to generate the human-readable error message.
- The error message isn't printed right away to allow later
configuration code to pick up an explicitly configured python.
Signed-off-by: John Snow <jsnow@redhat.com>
---
configure | 33 +++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
diff --git a/configure b/configure
index 64960c6000f..ea8c973d13b 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -592,20 +592,39 @@ esac
: ${make=${MAKE-make}}
-# We prefer python 3.x. A bare 'python' is traditionally
-# python 2.x, but some distros have it as python 3.x, so
-# we check that too
+
+check_py_version() {
+ # We require python >= 3.6.
+ # NB: a True python conditional creates a non-zero return code (Failure)
+ "$1" -c 'import sys; sys.exit(sys.version_info < (3,6))'
+}
+
python=
+first_python=
explicit_python=no
-for binary in "${PYTHON-python3}" python
+# A bare 'python' is traditionally python 2.x, but some distros
+# have it as python 3.x, so check in both places.
+for binary in "${PYTHON-python3}" python python3.{11..6}