Python+MacOS Versions

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jun 24, 2022, at 19:47, Joshua Root wrote:

> On 2022-6-25 05:47 , Jeremy Lavergne wrote:
>> Does anyone happen to know what versions of Python each MacOS shipped with?
>>  * I'm specifically hoping to find when python3.8 began being pre-installed on MacOS to update a PSPP build-dep that's only required on systems without python3.8.
>> https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/math/pspp/Portfile#L48   * Also hoping to make a wiki table with known versions for future reference.
> 
> It should be possible to find the version of python shipped with each version of macOS by looking at the tags at <https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions>. For example, clicking through to python from <https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/distribution-macOS/tree/mac-os-x-1068>, you can see that 10.6.8 shipped with Python 2.6.1 (and some older versions).
> 
> As mentioned previously, python3 is part of the developer tools, and unfortunately the corresponding source doesn't seem to be available anywhere that I can find. I think the /usr/bin/python3 stub first appeared in Catalina, with the actual python installation in Xcode 11, and was 3.7.3 at the time, but don't quote me on that.

Agreed, there is no /usr/bin/python3 on Mojave. On Catalina, /usr/bin/python3 --version returns "Python 3.7.3".

I didn't realize python3 wasn't part of the OS and was provided by Xcode. I guess that means that, unlike python2 on earlier systems, if a port needs python3 at runtime, it must use a MacPorts python3x port and not rely on the system python.