no output with 2. :return: Path to the resulting byte compiled file. Note that it isn't necessary to byte-compile Python modules for execution efficiency -- Python itself byte-compiles a module when it is loaded, and if it can, writes out the bytecode to the corresponding .pyc file. However, if a Python installation is shared between users, it is a good idea to byte-compile all modules upon installation, since other users may not be able to write in the source directories, and thus they won't be able to write the .pyc file, and then they would be byte-compiling every module each time it is loaded. This can slow down program start-up considerably. See compileall.py for a script/module that uses this module to byte-compile all installed files (or all files in selected directories). Do note that FileExistsError is raised if cfile ends up pointing at a non-regular file or symlink. Because the compilation uses a file renaming, the resulting file would be regular and thus not the same type of file as it was previously. Nr