Question

The original file name is view.py, forms.py but python automatically adds/saves some file named view.pyc, forms.pyc

I want to delete those extra view.pyc and forms.pyc files.

Why do I get those .pyc files?

Or how can I tell python not to create those extra files with .pyc extension?

Answer 1

pyc files are compiled bytecode files, not backup files

• 6.1.2 “Compiled” Python files http://docs.python.org/release/1.5.1p1/tut/node43.html

  As an important speed-up of the start-up time for short programs that use a lot of standard modules, if a file called “spam.pyc” exists in the directory where “spam.py” is found, this is assumed to contain an already-“byte-compiled” version of the module spam. The modification time of the version of “spam.py” used to create “spam.pyc” is recorded in “spam.pyc”, and the file is ignored if these don’t match.

Update:

To avoid writing pyc files (Python 2.6+)

• start with the -B flag (python -B)
• set the PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE environment variable.

See also How to avoid .pyc files?

---

Vim backups are named view.py~

Disable vim backups using

:se nobackup