What do the python file extensions pyc pyd pyo stand for

Question

What do these python file extensions mean     pyc  pyd  pyo   What are the differences between them and how are they generated from a   py file

User · Answer

py - Regular script  py3 -  rarely used  Python3 script  Python3 scripts usually end with   py  not   py3   but I have seen that a few times  pyc - compiled script  Bytecode   pyo - optimized pyc file  As of Python3 5  Python will only use pyc rather than pyo and pyc   pyw - Python script to run in Windowed mode  without a console  executed with pythonw exe  pyx - Cython src to be converted to C C    pyd - Python script made as a Windows DLL  pxd - Cython script which is equivalent to a C C   header  pxi - MyPy stub  pyi - Stub file  PEP 484   pyz - Python script archive  PEP 441   this is a script containing compressed Python scripts  ZIP  in binary form after the standard Python script header  pywz - Python script archive for MS-Windows  PEP 441   this is a script containing compressed Python scripts  ZIP  in binary form after the standard Python script header  py cod  - wildcard notation in   gitignore  that means the file may be   pyc     pyo   or   pyd    pth - a path configuration file  its contents are additional items  one per line  to be added to sys path  See site module    A larger list of additional Python file-extensions  mostly rare and unofficial  can be found at http   dcjtech info topic python-file-extensions

User · Answer

py  This is normally the input source code that you ve written   pyc  This is the compiled bytecode  If you import a module  python will build a   pyc file that contains the bytecode to make importing it again later easier  and faster    pyo   This was a file format used before Python 3 5 for   pyc files that were created with optimizations  -O  flag   see the note below   pyd  This is basically a windows dll file  http   docs python org faq windows html is-a-pyd-file-the-same-as-a-dll   Also for some further discussion on  pyc vs  pyo  take a look at  http   www network-theory co uk docs pytut CompiledPythonfiles html  I ve copied the important part below         When the Python interpreter is invoked with the -O flag  optimized code is generated and stored in     pyo    files  The optimizer currently doesn t help much  it only removes assert statements  When -O is used  all bytecode is optimized   pyc files are ignored and  py files are compiled to optimized bytecode    Passing two -O flags to the Python interpreter  -OO  will cause the bytecode compiler to perform optimizations that could in some rare cases result in malfunctioning programs  Currently only   doc   strings are removed from the bytecode  resulting in more compact     pyo    files  Since some programs may rely on having these available  you should only use this option if you know what you re doing    A program doesn t run any faster when it is read from a     pyc    or     pyo    file than when it is read from a     py    file  the only thing that s faster about     pyc    or     pyo    files is the speed with which they are loaded    When a script is run by giving its name on the command line  the bytecode for the script is never written to a     pyc    or     pyo    file  Thus  the startup time of a script may be reduced by moving most of its code to a module and having a small bootstrap script that imports that module  It is also possible to name a     pyc    or     pyo    file directly on the command line       Note    On 2015-09-15 the Python 3 5 release implemented PEP-488 and eliminated  pyo files   This means that  pyc files represent both unoptimized and optimized bytecode

[python] What do the python file extensions, .pyc .pyd .pyo stand for?

Examples related to python

Examples related to pyc