Mailman 3 April 2002 - Distutils-SIG

Re: [Distutils] How to detect if C compiler installed?
by Michael Hudson 16 Apr '02

16 Apr '02

Frank McIngvale <frankm(a)hiwaay.net> writes: > Hi, I was wondering if there is a portable > way to determine if a C compiler is available for > compiling extensions. I'm working on a package > that has some extensions that aren't strictly > required, and I'd like to turn on/off building > them based on whether a C compiler is available. > > (I know how to do the turn on/off thing, I just > need to know how to check for a C compiler.) > > Any hints? Try it and catch an exception? I don't think there's a mechanism for asking (could be wrong though). Cheers, M. -- There are 'infinite' number of developed artifacts and one cannot develop appreciation for them all. It would be all right to not understand something, but it would be imbecilic to put judgements on things one don't understand. -- Xah, comp.lang.lisp

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How to detect if C compiler installed?
by Frank McIngvale 15 Apr '02

15 Apr '02

Hi, I was wondering if there is a portable way to determine if a C compiler is available for compiling extensions. I'm working on a package that has some extensions that aren't strictly required, and I'd like to turn on/off building them based on whether a C compiler is available. (I know how to do the turn on/off thing, I just need to know how to check for a C compiler.) Any hints? frank

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Windows absolute paths
by Peter Bienstman 15 Apr '02

15 Apr '02

Hi, I'm having trouble in getting Windows absolute paths like e.g d:\foo to work in distutils. They alway seem to be treated as a relative path... Thanks, Peter

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Require a specific Python version
by Peter Bienstman 15 Apr '02

15 Apr '02

Hi, Is there any way to specify in setup.py that a particular distribution requires e.g. Python 2.2, such that an error is issued if users try to install it on an earlier Python version? Thanks, Peter

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separate software from data
by Mark McEahern 12 Apr '02

12 Apr '02

Here's the short form of my question: How do people generally keep their Python modules and any configuration data for those Python modules separate? I'm looking for both conventions (e.g., config goes in /etc/foo) and mechanics (e.g., use distutils with options x, y, and z). The longer form of the question is a bit more convoluted, so for those with patience, read on. ;-) I'm transitioning from Windows to Linux. So part of my question is about the conventions for separating software from data on Linux. I assume it's self-explanatory why you'd want to separate software from data. In case it's not, here's why I think it's important to separate: You don't really have to backup software (although you can if you want), but you do have to backup data (it's not like you can re-download it). So, if push comes to shove, and you have limited resources/time, it's nice to be able to focus on the important stuff and only back that up. There's always a gray line between software and data that I label configuration data. In the Linux world, I guess that'd constitute anything you do to install any piece of software beyond the equivalent of configure; make; make install. If you specify any configuration options, create daemon accounts, etc.--ideally you'd do that with a script and you'd store that script somewhere along with your data, so that you not only knew what you did, but you could easily re-do it. I've looked at distutils and it's not immediately obvious that it was designed to solve the distribution problem in the particular what I want to try to solve it, although I suppose I may be able to extend distutils with special commands to do something like this? I want a way to say something like this: Install my module here: /usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/ By default, place configuration data here: /etc/my-package/ But if the installer specifies different configuration options when running setup.py, then use those values when generating mypackage.conf from mypackage.conf.template. Of course, the person installing the package should be able to override where configuration data is stored: $ python setup.py --configdir=/var/foo If such an option existed, its effect might be to generate a configuration file in the root of the package's module distribution folder: /site-packages/mymodule/mymodule.conf containing something readable by ConfigParser: [locations] prefix=/etc/mymodule/ connections=%prefix/connections.xml So that at runtime, the module first looks to the configuration information in its package distribution to determine where it needs to look for the distribution-specific configuration information? Shwew. Has anybody tackled this problem or do most folks just punt on this issue and assume they can plop configuration information alongside their distributed modules without providing any easy way for the person who installs it to override that? Thanks, // mark

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distutils in Mandrake 8.2
by Marko Samastur 10 Apr '02

10 Apr '02

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, I have a problem that I'm not able to solve on my own. I'm using python2.2 that comes with Mandrake Linux distribution 8.2. I have a tree of python sources that I'd like to package in more or less the same tree, which would be installed in site-packages under subdirectories pyortal and pyortal-modules. If I understand python documentation correctly, if I want those modules to be easily accessible for everyone, I need to have .pth file in site-packages that points to all subdirectories (and right, if I create it manually, it works). The problem I have is that if I run bdist_rpm, I can see a message that is telling me that .pth is being build, but the file is missing in the created rpm. If I build with bdist only, it creates and includes pyortal.pth (but it only lists pyortal directory in it without any subdirectory). So, what am I doing wrong? While I'm at it...is there an easy way to include normal text files in module distribution? Again, if I'm not mistaken, the current way to achieve this is to list every one of them in MANIFEST.in. Thank you for your help. Kind regards, Marko - -- HP: http://elite.org/~markos PGP:http://elite.org/~markos/markos.key Jabber: markos(a)aufbix.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8s89FkqL33r/UuYQRAqE8AJ9S0fHXskurhNaNJAZb6dozIaIp3wCgmp5H OKIbEEFDqmrFtgvsiGM/BO0= =GPH1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: [Distutils] distutils in Mandrake 8.2
by Moore, Paul 10 Apr '02

10 Apr '02

From: Marko Samastur [mailto:markos@elite.org] > > Why .pth files ? Why not simply *copy* the code to site-packages ? > > Mainly, but not only, because of estetic reasons. My > project already has 26 .py files and this number will only rise. > > Dumping them all in one directory (and other authors doing > the same), would just make that directory look like a trashcan > and could also result in filename conflicts (which can be > otherwise avoided if certain modules in subdirectories are > never directly imported). So why not make your stuff a proper package? That's the correct way of handling this. If you don't want your users to have to cope with multi-level names, you can always do some magic in __init__.py. But frankly, multi-level names shouldn't be seen as a problem to be overcome - they are a *convenience* to avoid name clashes, and should be used for that purpose. Paul.

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Where should 'scripts' go...
by David Ascher 09 Apr '02

09 Apr '02

Currently, scripts go somewhere in the "Scripts" directory (e.g. on Windows, something like C:\Python22\Scripts, on Unix somewhere in the bin/ directory. If people specify scripts that live in subdirectories in their source tree, using current distutils, those then get placed in subdirectories of the [bin|Scripts] directory. To my mind, this is somewhat wrong, since I expect scripts (those things which have a #! line, an executable bit set, etc.) to all be placed into a single directory. It means that I don't need to muck w/ my PATH if I install a package that has a script. Is my mind right or is my mind wrong? I'll help fix distutils if I'm right, and I'll fix ActivePython's current PPM behavior if I'm wrong. =) --david

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Re: PEP 262: Database of Installed Python Packages
by Nicolas Chauvat 09 Apr '02

09 Apr '02

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, A.M. Kuchling wrote: > A package database is a necessary prequisite for managing the Python > packages installed on a system. PEP 262 lists the requirements for > such a database and specifies a storage format for it. > > I'd like to get this into Python 2.3, hopefully with a > still-to-be-specified package management tool. Assuming no one points > out some requirement or use case missing from this draft of the PEP, > my next step will be to write a proposed interface, post that draft, > and then implement the PEP and integrate it with the Distutils. > > Comments can be posted to comp.lang.python or to the Distutils SIG. Here is an item for the wishlist: Installing a new package and recording its name and file-list in a database is one thing. RPM does that. Easily maintaining a package-based system is another. APT+DPKG does that thanks to all the features it has over RPM (downloading the list of available packages from a mirror of the unified repository, checking integrity, calculating dependencies, etc.), but also thanks to the work of hundreds of debian developers that take care of all the dependencies between packages and upload their packages to a central coherent repository. I would be cool to have the equivalent for Python. We more or less already have that with Debian, for Python extension packages are packaged as Debian packages and can be upgraded on one debian host with a single ATP command. To my knowledge, APT has nothing DPKG-specific. If what we are after is to let people manage and upgrade their installed python packages. What about replacing DPKG with its Python couterpart and let APT handle the rest of the trouble? Is it really needed to fully implement yet another packaging system? Or is the proposal just about a DPKG-replacement for Python packages and did the mention of APT at the beginning of the PEP lead me to a misunderstanding? My last question: why should we have package management system "internal" to a Python installation. Isn't it the role of the distro to handle packages and should't we focus on helping out the existing distro tools deal with Python extensions instead? My 2 Eurocents. -- Nicolas Chauvat http://www.logilab.com - "Mais où est donc Ornicar ?" - LOGILAB, Paris (France)

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Re: Help with --with-pydebug installation of NumPy on Windows?
by Thomas Heller 09 Apr '02

09 Apr '02

[CC to distutils-sig. The context is: distutils doesn't work with source distributions on windows] David, Tim, Here is a patch which allows distutils on windows to work with the source distribution. I've tested it with Numeric, but nothing else so far: Index: build_ext.py =================================================================== RCS file: /cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Lib/distutils/command/build_ext.py,v retrieving revision 1.79 diff -c -r1.79 build_ext.py *** build_ext.py 31 Jan 2002 18:56:00 -0000 1.79 --- build_ext.py 8 Apr 2002 08:09:33 -0000 *************** *** 167,172 **** --- 167,176 ---- else: self.build_temp = os.path.join(self.build_temp, "Release") + # Append the source distribution include and library directories + self.include_dirs.append(os.path.join(sys.exec_prefix, 'PC')) + self.library_dirs.append(os.path.join(sys.exec_prefix, 'PCBuild')) + # OS/2 (EMX) doesn't support Debug vs Release builds, but has the # import libraries in its "Config" subdirectory if os.name == 'os2': And here is one which is also very useful for debug builds: it feeds absolute path names to MSVC, which has the advantage that the MSVC debugger finds the debugged files automatically, without asking the user to find them: Index: msvccompiler.py =================================================================== RCS file: /cvsroot/python/python/dist/src/Lib/distutils/msvccompiler.py,v retrieving revision 1.45 diff -c -r1.45 msvccompiler.py *** msvccompiler.py 8 Feb 2002 14:41:31 -0000 1.45 --- msvccompiler.py 8 Apr 2002 08:12:47 -0000 *************** *** 309,314 **** --- 309,316 ---- else: self.mkpath (os.path.dirname (obj)) + if debug: + src = os.path.abspath(src) if ext in self._c_extensions: input_opt = "/Tc" + src elif ext in self._cpp_extensions: IMO, both changes look innocent enough so that I could check them into CVS. Thomas

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