Compile Python2.7 on CentOS 6

[ These steps may work on CentOS 5.*  too]

Prepare your OS for it

$ sudo yum groupinstall "Development tools"

$ sudo yum install zlib-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel sqlite-devel readline-devel tk-devel gdbm-devel db4-devel

Now Download python 2.7 at any location [say make a directory name py in your home directory]
$ wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.5/Python-2.7.5.tar.bz2
Unzip it:
$ tar xf Python-2.7.5.tar.bz2
Change directory:
$ cd Python-2.7.5
inside Python-2.7.5 directory run these command one by one:
$ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
$ make

***
when make command finishes at the end you will see something like this:
----------
Python build finished, but the necessary bits to build these modules were not found:
bsddb185           dl           imageop
sunaudiodev                      
To find the necessary bits, look in setup.py in detect_modules() for the module's name.
----------
NOTE: sunaudiodev is for Sun platforms,dl for 32bit platforms, imageop is deprecated and bsddb185 is undocumented.
***

$ sudo make altinstall

** you must use [make altinstall] otherwise you will corrupt the system
(CentOS comes with python 2.6 and yum is dependent on it if you use [make install] it will replace python 2.6 and yum may not work)

to test your installation run this command:
$ python2.7