Feature or enhancement

Freezing zipimport module into _boostrap_python.

Pitch

Currently, _bootstrap_python is used to freeze modules during python building. When running _bootstrap_python, stdlib files can be found in the source directory. However, when embedding cpython into another program, other build systems may be used to build cpython. Furthermore, these build systems may build cpython out of the source tree, even in a sandbox directory. Now, in order for the _bootstrap_python to function, we need to distribute the stdlib into the build directory. In this situation, a zip file of stdlib is the preferable way to do it. Unfortunately, the zipimport is not frozen into _bootstrap_python, so we can’t use a zip stdlib.

If we freeze zipimport into _bootstrap_python it will ease the build process a lot. It’s a minor patch. We have tested it on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Admittedly, this change has no additional benefit to normal python building. But it doesn’t seem to be doing any harm.

Previous discussion

https://discuss.python.org/t/how-about-freezing-zipimport-into-bootstrap-python/21203

Linked PRs

• gh-99582: freeze zipimport into _bootstrap_python #99583