64-bit bytecode compatibility (was Re: [PEAK] ez_setup on 64-bit linux problem)

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 09:49 AM 9/29/2005 -0400, Viren Shah wrote:
>[I sent this earlier without being a subscriber and it was sent to the 
>moderation queue so I'm resending it after subscribing]
>
>Hi,
>   I'm running a 64-bit Fedora Core 3 with python 2.3.4. I'm trying to 
> install setuptools to use with Trac, and get the following error:
>
>  [root at Mrdumpling ~]$ python ez_setup.py
>Downloading 
>http://cheeseshop.python.org/packages/2.3/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6a4-py2.3.egg
>Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "ez_setup.py", line 206, in ?
>     main(sys.argv[1:])
>   File "ez_setup.py", line 141, in main
>     from setuptools.command.easy_install import main
>OverflowError: signed integer is greater than maximum
>
>
>I get the same type of error if I try installing setuptools manually. I 
>figure this has to do with the 64-bit nature of the OS and python, but not 
>being a python person, don't know what a workaround would be.
>
>Any ideas?

Hm.  It sounds like perhaps the 64-bit Python in question isn't able to 
read bytecode for Python from a 32-bit Python version.  You'll need to 
download the setuptools source archive from PyPI and install it using 
"python setup.py install" instead.

In the meantime, I'm going to inquire on Python-Dev about whether a 64-bit 
Python should be able to read 32-bit bytecode, as I was under the 
impression Python's bytecode format was supposed to be cross-platform.  See 
e.g.:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2004-March/213039.html