Darrell, All,

Investigating the default sip packages provided by arch I find: sip (python3) and python2-sip (python2). What arch has done is build /usr/bin/sip with python3, but still provides all the packages we provide in sip4-tqt in the python2-sip package. I wonder if this might not be a better setup. Specifically here is the current arch package setup:

22:44 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Ql python2-sip python2-sip /usr/ python2-sip /usr/bin/ python2-sip /usr/include/ python2-sip /usr/include/python2.7/ python2-sip /usr/include/python2.7/sip.h python2-sip /usr/lib/ python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/ python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sip.so python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipconfig.py python2-sip /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipdistutils.py python2-sip /usr/share/ python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/ python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/python2-sip/ python2-sip /usr/share/licenses/python2-sip/LICENSE

22:45 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Ql sip sip /usr/ sip /usr/bin/ sip /usr/bin/sip sip /usr/include/ sip /usr/include/python3.2mu/ sip /usr/include/python3.2mu/sip.h sip /usr/lib/ sip /usr/lib/python3.2/ sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/ sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sip.so sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sipconfig.py sip /usr/lib/python3.2/site-packages/sipdistutils.py sip /usr/share/ sip /usr/share/licenses/ sip /usr/share/licenses/sip/ sip /usr/share/licenses/sip/LICENSE

The sip4-tqt provides essentially what the arch python2-sip package provides EXCEPT /usr/bin/sip which is provided by the python3 based sip package. If the python3 sip is backwards compatible with the sip4-tqt needs, then couldn't I simply replace the python2-sip package on arch with the sip2-tqt package without the binary and keep both the original Arch sip package and sip4-tqt installed and use the existing sip binary?

The sip4-tqt package I just built includes the following:

22:45 valkyrie:~/Documents/bld/tde-sip4-tqt> pacman -Qpl tde-sip4-tqt-3513_tqt-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz tde-sip4-tqt /usr/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/bin/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/bin/sip tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/python2.7/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/include/python2.7/sip.h tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/ tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sip.so tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipconfig.py tde-sip4-tqt /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sipdistutils.py

That would be a neat way to have sip cover both python2 as well as python3. What say the experts?