Python 3.9 AIX Platform String Format Change

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Are you ready for some exciting news? Well buckle up because we’re going to talk about an important change in the way AIX platform strings are formatted in Python 3.9. In previous versions of Python, AIX platform strings looked like “aix6100-lpp-xl_64”. But with version 3.9, things have changed and for a good reason!

The new format follows a more standardized approach that includes four decimal values: V.R.M.F (Version, Release, Machine, Feature). This means you can easily identify which version and release of AIX is being used on your system. For example, “aix-7105-1731-64” represents a 64-bit build on AIX oslevel -s: 7100-05-01-1731.

But wait! There’s more! Python 3.9 also includes a handy function called `aix_platform()` that makes it easy to extract the V.R.M.F values from an AIX platform string. Here’s how you can use it:

# Import necessary libraries
import os
from platform import system, architecture

# Define a function to get AIX version
def get_aix_version():
    # Get the current operating system and machine architecture
    os_info = (system(), architecture())
    
    # Check if we're running on AIX
    if "AIX" in os_info[0]:
        # Extract the AIX platform string from the environment variables
        aix_platform = os.environ["OS_RELEASE"]
        
        # Use the `aix_platform()` function to extract the V.R.M.F values
        version, build_date = aix_platform()
        
        # Print out the results!
        print(f"You're running AIX {version} ({build_date}) on {os_info[1]}.") # Print the AIX version and build date, along with the machine architecture
        
# Call the function to get AIX version
get_aix_version() # Call the function to execute the code and get the AIX version

# Explanation:
# - The script imports the necessary libraries, including the `os` library for accessing environment variables and the `platform` library for getting system information.
# - The `get_aix_version()` function is defined to get the AIX version.
# - The `os_info` variable stores the current operating system and machine architecture.
# - The `if` statement checks if the current operating system is AIX.
# - The `aix_platform` variable stores the AIX platform string from the environment variables.
# - The `version` and `build_date` variables use the `aix_platform()` function to extract the V.R.M.F values.
# - The `print()` statement prints out the AIX version, build date, and machine architecture.
# - The `get_aix_version()` function is called to execute the code and get the AIX version.

9 has made some exciting changes to how we handle AIX platform strings, and with functions like `aix_platform()`, it’s easier than ever before to extract the V.R.M.F values from these strings.

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