Python Setup and Usage

This part of the documentation is devoted to general information on the setup of the Python environment on different platforms, the invocation of the interpreter and things that make working with Python easier.

• 1. Command line and environment
  • 1.1. Command line
    • 1.1.1. Interface options
    • 1.1.2. Generic options
    • 1.1.3. Miscellaneous options
    • 1.1.4. Options you shouldn’t use
  • 1.2. Environment variables
    • 1.2.1. Debug-mode variables
• 2. Using Python on Unix platforms
  • 2.1. Getting and installing the latest version of Python
    • 2.1.1. On Linux
    • 2.1.2. On FreeBSD and OpenBSD
    • 2.1.3. On OpenSolaris
  • 2.2. Building Python
  • 2.3. Python-related paths and files
  • 2.4. Miscellaneous
  • 2.5. Custom OpenSSL
• 3. Configure Python
  • 3.1. Configure Options
    • 3.1.1. General Options
    • 3.1.2. WebAssembly Options
    • 3.1.3. Install Options
    • 3.1.4. Performance options
    • 3.1.5. Python Debug Build
    • 3.1.6. Debug options
    • 3.1.7. Linker options
    • 3.1.8. Libraries options
    • 3.1.9. Security Options
    • 3.1.10. macOS Options
    • 3.1.11. Cross Compiling Options
  • 3.2. Python Build System
    • 3.2.1. Main files of the build system
    • 3.2.2. Main build steps
    • 3.2.3. Main Makefile targets
    • 3.2.4. C extensions
  • 3.3. Compiler and linker flags
    • 3.3.1. Preprocessor flags
    • 3.3.2. Compiler flags
    • 3.3.3. Linker flags
• 4. Using Python on Windows
  • 4.1. The full installer
    • 4.1.1. Installation steps
    • 4.1.2. Removing the MAX_PATH Limitation
    • 4.1.3. Installing Without UI
    • 4.1.4. Installing Without Downloading
    • 4.1.5. Modifying an install
  • 4.2. The Microsoft Store package
    • 4.2.1. Known issues
      • 4.2.1.1. Redirection of local data, registry, and temporary paths
  • 4.3. The nuget.org packages
  • 4.4. The embeddable package
    • 4.4.1. Python Application
    • 4.4.2. Embedding Python
  • 4.5. Alternative bundles
  • 4.6. Configuring Python
    • 4.6.1. Excursus: Setting environment variables
    • 4.6.2. Finding the Python executable
  • 4.7. UTF-8 mode
  • 4.8. Python Launcher for Windows
    • 4.8.1. Getting started
      • 4.8.1.1. From the command-line
      • 4.8.1.2. Virtual environments
      • 4.8.1.3. From a script
      • 4.8.1.4. From file associations
    • 4.8.2. Shebang Lines
    • 4.8.3. Arguments in shebang lines
    • 4.8.4. Customization
      • 4.8.4.1. Customization via INI files
      • 4.8.4.2. Customizing default Python versions
    • 4.8.5. Diagnostics
    • 4.8.6. Dry Run
    • 4.8.7. Install on demand
    • 4.8.8. Return codes
  • 4.9. Finding modules
  • 4.10. Additional modules
    • 4.10.1. PyWin32
    • 4.10.2. cx_Freeze
  • 4.11. Compiling Python on Windows
  • 4.12. Other Platforms
• 5. Using Python on a Mac
  • 5.1. Getting and Installing MacPython
    • 5.1.1. How to run a Python script
    • 5.1.2. Running scripts with a GUI
    • 5.1.3. Configuration
  • 5.2. The IDE
  • 5.3. Installing Additional Python Packages
  • 5.4. GUI Programming on the Mac
  • 5.5. Distributing Python Applications on the Mac
  • 5.6. Other Resources
• 6. Editors and IDEs