Setting Default Python

I created .profile with the contents:

alias python=python2.7

and then did:

source ~/.profile

But when I executed my test.sh I still received "Python 2.4.3"

So I tried again adding the file .sh_profile. Same results.

When I do a "ls -l /bin", a portion of the response shows sh is linked to bash.

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   20688 Jan  9  2007 setserial
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       4 May 17 11:01 sh -> bash
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   19692 Mar 30 12:12 sleep

I also tried changing my test.sh script to:

#!/bin/bash
echo `python -V`

But this yielded the same results. Executing the script yields "Python 2.4.3".

Finally, I did try changing my test.sh to:

#!/bin/bash
echo `python2.7 -V`

This did yield "Python 2.7.1". However, I am trying to use some complex scripts that someone else wrote -- fixing these appears to be much harder than replacing every "python" with "python2.7".

Is there an easier way to make Python 2.7 my default all the time?

I tried a few things but found that creating this symlink is the easiest way,

$ ln -s /usr/local/bin/python2.7 ~/bin/python

hmmm. Seems like the above should work, but I am still getting "Python 2.4.3". My ~/bin after the change:

[rockart@web201 bin]$ ls -l
total 16
-rwxrwxr-x 1 rockart rockart 1070 Jul 19 15:57 hg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 rockart rockart  250 Jul 18 17:23 pip
-rwxr-xr-x 1 rockart rockart  258 Jul 18 17:23 pip-2.7
lrwxrwxrwx 1 rockart rockart   24 Jul 28 22:05 python -> /usr/local/bin/python2.7
-rwxr-xr-x 1 rockart rockart  285 Jul 18 17:25 virtualenv

And my test.sh changed back to the original above:

#!/bin/sh
echo `python -V`

Submit a support ticket so we can look directly.

For the record, the docs at http://docs.webfaction.com/software/python.html#creating-a-python-alias were updated to remove the reference to a "default" python and note that a python "alias" is not available within shell scripts.