["python"]
How to avoid .pyc files?

Can I run the python interpreter without generating the compiled .pyc files?
From "What’s New in Python 2.6 - Interpreter Changes": Python can now be prevented from writing .pyc or .pyo files by supplying the -B switch to the Python interpreter, or by setting the PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable before running the interpreter. This setting is available to Python programs as the sys.dont_write_bytecode variable, and Python code can change the value to modify the interpreter’s behaviour. So run your program as python -B prog.py. Update 2010-11-27: Python 3.2 addresses the issue of cluttering source folders with .pyc files by introducing a special __pycache__ subfolder, see What's New in Python 3.2 - PYC Repository Directories. NOTE: The default behavior is to generate the bytecode and is done for "performance" reasons (for more information see here for python2 and see here for python3). The generation of bytecode .pyc files is a form of caching (i.e. greatly improves average performance). Configuring python with PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 can be bad for python performance (for python2 see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0304/ and for python3 see https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3147/ ). If you are interested in the performance impact please see here https://github.com/python/cpython .