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[Python-Dev] PEP 405 (venv) - why does it copy the DLLs on Windows

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Sat Mar 23 14:51:41 CET 2013 
On 23 March 2013 12:55, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:57:02 +0000
> Richard Oudkerk <shibturn at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 23/03/2013 10:06am, Paul Moore wrote:
>> >> One example of a non-system-wide installation is a source build of Python.
>> >> PEP 405 venvs created from a source build should work in the same way as venvs
>> >> created using an installed Python.
>> >
>> > Thanks. I hadn't thought of that case. However, I'm still not entirely
>> > clear *why* the DLLs need to be copied. I'll set up a source build and
>> > test virtualenv against it to see if it fails. Assuming it does, I
>> > should be able to work out what the issue is from that.
>>
>> Also, couldn't hard links be used instead of copying?  (This will fail
>> if not on the same NTFS partition, but then one can copy as a fallback.)
>
> Hard links are generally hard to discover and debug (at least under
> Unix, but I suppose the same applies under Windows).

Yes. And links in general are less common, and so more of a surprise,
on Windows as well.
Paul
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