On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 5:39 PM, Terry Reedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Orestis Markou wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> I'm the developer of PySmell ( http://github.com/orestis/pysmell ), a >> static analysis/intellisense provider for Python. I am targeting >> Python 2.4 code so I'm using the compiler package. >> >> I've been toying around yesterday with the ast module in Python 2.6 >> and it seems much more cleaner. One thing I don't understand is how >> should one handle backwards and forwards compatibility. > > My impression is that the 2.6 ast package is quite different from the 2.4 > compiler package, but I have not looked at it (in its 3.0 version) yet. If > the 2.4 code you are analyzing is syntactically and sematically valid as 2.6 > code, which I believe is usual, then of course there is no problem. If it > is not, then I would not be sure.
The ast module is indeed very different from the compiler package, as it depends on the exact grammar definition that the interpreter is using, rather a re-implementation (which I understand the compiler.ast is). My confusion starts with the fact that I'm not sure if all Python 2.4 code is going to be syntactically valid 2.6 code. I guess 2.3 is valid 2.4 is valid 2.5, which should be valid 2.6 (but not valid 3.0) - I think it's the lockstep of 2.6 and 3.0 that's misleading me... > >> I guess that Python 2.6 can target Python 2.3-6, and with specific >> compiler flags it can also target 3.0, so it seems that the correct >> thing to do is to use that. > > If you want to target 2.3 to 3.0, 2.6 is the only option as far as I know. > I expect you will want to run your code through 2to3 (still being improved) > and run under 3.0 to properly handle 3.0 code. That sounds correct. It's annoying that I have to require Python 2.6 for this - I guess that since the compiler module is there in 2.6 I'm not compelled to use ast until I want to run under 3.0... > > Maybe someone else can give a better answer. > > tjr > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list > -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://orestis.gr -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
