I installed a couple of pythons in different versions with macports, and the apple python 2.6 is also working. Now I need to run a program which requires MySQLdb package support in python, and this package was installed to the python I installed by macports. The program tells me that there is no MySQLdb installed, so I guess it is the apple python working for that program.

I searched for some help and found python_select for switching between pythons. However after the command

$>sudo python_select python25

told me that it selected the version "python25" for python, when I type

$>python

it is still apple python 2.6 that launches.

The question is that how can I make python25(the one with MySQLdb) work for the program rather than apple python?

Another important thing, the program is NOT a .py file and needs to be compiled before running. So do I need to re-install this program? My Mac OS version is Snow Leopard 10.6.

Any answer is appreciated.

By default, MacPorts installs user programs (or links to them) in /opt/local/bin. The MacPorts select_python command selects which python instance is linked to /opt/local/bin/python. It has no effect (nor should it) on what Apple installs in /usr/bin, which is where the Apple-supplied python and python2.x commands are.

To invoke the MacPorts python2.5, you either need to ensure that /opt/local/bin precedes /usr/bin on your shell $PATH (you can do this by modifying your .bash_profile or other shell initialization script) or you can simply invoke the desired python with an absolute path reference:

$ /usr/bin/python your-program.py

to use the Apple-supplied default python;

$ /opt/local/bin/python your-program.py

to use the version selected with python_select, or:

$ /opt/local/bin/python2.5 your-program.py

to explicitly select the MacPorts 2.5 one.

EDIT:

To modify your search PATH to use MacPorts, add this line to .bash_profile:

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH