On a native Mac OS X install, I see Python binary at /usr/bin at version 2.6
Recently I installed Python 2.7.2 from the official binaries and it installed it at /usr/local/bin
What path of the Python interpreter should I give in my #! which will be standardized across all platforms?
I am assuming it could be /usr/bin so that I may have to symlink /usr/bin/python to /usr/local/bin/python but I just wanted to sure before I do this
Nope. You would use env to find the python executable in $PATH and run it as appropriate.
#!/usr/bin/env python
print 'Hi mom!'
/usr/local/bin isn't sufficient when you install third-party packages with scripts. You need to include the framework bin directory; various distributors of OS X Pythons use different locations for their framework roots.
print('Hi Mum!')On Mac OS X, do not modify anything in /usr (including /usr/bin) other than /usr/local, nor anything in /System/Library. Those directory spaces are managed by Apple as part of OS X. You risk breaking your system if you change or delete the wrong thing there. The best way to manage different versions is to modify your shell PATH environment variable; then you can use /usr/bin/env if needed. You can also use shell aliases or just use absolute paths. The Python installers from python.org have an option to automatically modify your shell initialization files appropriately.
