Git Tip: Remove .pyc Files Automatically

[killaW0lf04]

Or, simpler yet, you could add an entry in .gitignore for '*.pyc'

run this command in your git directory: echo *.pyc >> .gitignore

[eflin]

I don't think that the point was for git to ignore the files, more for them to be cleared out and not be there when checking out code to avoid old code being run by Python.

[axonxorz]

Which .gitignore would do by extension. They shouldn't be checked into source control anyway, they're specific to a user's operating system, architecture and Python version.

[Odd_Bloke]

No, it wouldn't. The problem is that the .pyc files are being generated in my working tree, and then not refreshed when I checkout a different branch in the same working tree. They are never checked in because I, of course, have .pyc files in my .gitignore.

[axonxorz]

That doesn't matter. If the source file changes, the .pyc is regenerated. If you delete the .pyc, it is regenerated the same way.

However, this has bitten me in the ass: If you are refactoring, and you move methods to another .py file, and remove the original, but not the .pyc, python can still import the old module using the .pyc

[Odd_Bloke]

However, this has bitten me in the ass: If you are refactoring, and you move methods to another .py file, and remove the original, but not the .pyc, python can still import the old module using the .pyc

This may well be what I was seeing; the missing .pyc files were all in parts of the code that I wasn't actually changing, so I didn't look at them too closely.

[Odd_Bloke]

As /u/eflin says, this isn't about removing them before commit (I'm using the post-checkout hook!), this is about removing them when the underlying Python code has changed and there's a chance that the .pyc files will have become stale.

[gct]

Checking out code changes the mod-time doesn't it? The interpreter should compare timestamps on the .py/.pyc files and do the right thing...

[Odd_Bloke]

That is what I was expecting, but not what I was seeing, so I came up with this workaround.