Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentr...@2ndquadrant.com> writes: > I'm not trying to dismiss the importance of managing the Python > transition. But this issue has been known for many years, and the > current setup is more or less in line with the wider world. For > example, the Debian release that came out over the weekend still ships > with /usr/bin/python being Python 2. So it is neither timely nor urgent > to try to make some significant change about this in PostgreSQL 12 right > now. I would welcome patches for this for PostgreSQL 13.
I don't think it's been mentioned in this thread yet, but we *did* recently install a configure-time preference for python3 over python2: Author: Peter Eisentraut <pe...@eisentraut.org> Branch: master Release: REL_12_BR [7291733ac] 2019-01-13 10:23:48 +0100 Branch: REL_11_STABLE Release: REL_11_2 [3d498c65a] 2019-01-13 10:24:21 +0100 Branch: REL_10_STABLE Release: REL_10_7 [cd1873160] 2019-01-13 10:25:23 +0100 configure: Update python search order Some systems don't ship with "python" by default anymore, only "python3" or "python2" or some combination, so include those in the configure search. Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/1457.1543184081%40sss.pgh.pa.us#c9cc1199338fd6a257589c6dcea6cf8d configure's search order is now $PYTHON, python, python3, python2. I think it will be a very long time, if ever, before there would be a reason to consider changing that. Both of the first two options represent following a clear user preference. So the only thing that's really at stake is when/whether we can make "plpythonu" a synonym for "plpython3u" rather than "plpython2u". As I said already, I think that's got to be a long way off, since the whole problem here is that python3 isn't a drop-in replacement for python2. We're much more likely to break existing functions than do anything useful by forcibly switching the synonym. But I could support having a way for individual installations to change what the synonym means locally. Perhaps we could think about how to do that in conjunction with the project of getting rid of pg_pltemplate that's been kicked around before [1][2][3]. regards, tom lane [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/763f2fe4-743f-d530-8831-20811edd3d6a%402ndquadrant.com [2] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/7495.1524861244%40sss.pgh.pa.us [3] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/5351890.TdMePpdHBD%40nb.usersys.redhat.com