What is a frozen Python module?

Question

The Python help of the module imp is talking about a frozen module. What is it?

http://docs.python.org/library/imp.html#imp.PY_FROZEN

Answer 1

The answer is in the same place:

(Frozen modules are modules written in Python whose compiled byte-code object is incorporated into a custom-built Python interpreter by Python’s freeze utility. See Tools/freeze/ for now.)

Answer 2

This link explains what the Python Freeze utility is in detail: http://wiki.python.org/moin/Freeze

In a nutshell, it creates a portable version of a python script that carries its own built in interpreter (basically like a binary executable), so that you can run it on machines without python.

Answer 3

http://docs.python.org/library/imp.html#imp.PY_FROZEN links to http://docs.python.org/library/imp.html#imp.init_frozen which explains it:

Frozen modules are modules written in Python whose compiled byte-code object is incorporated into a custom-built Python interpreter by Python’s freeze utility. See Tools/freeze/ for now.