Is there a way to compile a Python .py file from the command-line without executing it?
I am working with an application that stores its python extensions in a non-standard path with limited permissions and I'd like to compile the files during installation. I don't need the overhead of Distutils.
The py_compile module provides a function to generate a byte-code file from a source file, and another function used when the module source file is invoked as a script.
python -m py_compile fileA.py fileB.py fileC.py
Yes, there is module compileall. Here's an example that compiles all the .py files in a directory (but not sub-directories):
python -m compileall -l myDirectory
In fact if you're on Linux you may already have a /usr/bin/py_compilefiles command in your PATH. It wraps the the py_compile module mentioned by other people. If you're not on Linux, here's the script code.
$ python -c "import py_compile; py_compile.compile('yourfile.py')"
or
$ python -c "import py_compile; py_compile.compileall('dir')"