Mailman 3 September 2007 - Distutils-SIG

Package versioning
by Timothy Docker April 29, 2018

April 29, 2018

Hi all, I've been aware that the distutils sig has been simmerring away, but until recently it has not been directly relevant to what I do. I like the look of the proposed api, but have one question. Will this support an installed system that has multiple versions of the same package installed simultaneously? If not, then this would seem to be a significant limitation, especially when dependencies between packages are considered. Assuming it does, then how will this be achieved? I am presently managing this with a messy arrangement of symlinks. A package is installed with its version number in it's name, and a separate directory is created for an application with links from the unversioned package name to the versioned one. Then I just set the pythonpath to this directory. A sample of what the directory looks like is shown below. I'm sure there is a better solution that this, and I'm not sure that this would work under windows anyway (does windows have symlinks?). So, has this SIG considered such versioning issues yet? Cheers, Tim -------------------------------------------------------------- Tim Docker timd(a)macquarie.com.au Quantative Applications Division Macquarie Bank -------------------------------------------------------------- qad16:qad $ ls -l lib/python/ total 110 drwxr-xr-x 2 mts mts 512 Nov 11 11:23 1.1 -r--r----- 1 root mts 45172 Sep 1 1998 cdrmodule_0_7_1.so drwxr-xr-x 2 mts mts 512 Sep 1 1998 chart_1_1 drwxr-xr-x 3 mts mts 512 Sep 1 1998 Fnorb_0_7_1 dr-xr-x--- 3 mts mts 512 Nov 11 11:21 Fnorb_0_8 drwxr-xr-x 3 mts mts 1536 Mar 3 12:45 mts_1_1 dr-xr-x--- 7 mts mts 512 Nov 11 11:22 OpenGL_1_5_1 dr-xr-x--- 2 mts mts 1024 Nov 11 11:23 PIL_0_3 drwxr-xr-x 3 mts mts 512 Sep 1 1998 Pmw_0_7 dr-xr-x--- 2 mts mts 512 Nov 11 11:21 v3d_1_1 qad16:qad $ ls -l lib/python/1.1 total 30 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 29 Apr 10 10:43 _glumodule.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/_glumodule.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 30 Apr 10 10:43 _glutmodule.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/_glutmodule.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 22 Apr 10 10:43 _imaging.so -> ../PIL_0_3/_imaging.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 36 Apr 10 10:43 _opengl_nummodule.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/_opengl_nummodule.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 27 Apr 10 10:43 _tkinter.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/_tkinter.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 mts mts 21 Apr 10 10:43 cdrmodule.so -> ../cdrmodule_0_7_1.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 mts mts 12 Apr 10 10:43 chart -> ../chart_1_1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 12 Apr 10 10:43 Fnorb -> ../Fnorb_0_8 lrwxrwxrwx 1 mts mts 12 Apr 10 10:43 mts -> ../mts_1_1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 15 Apr 10 10:43 OpenGL -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 33 Apr 10 10:43 opengltrmodule.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/opengltrmodule.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 33 Apr 10 10:43 openglutil_num.so -> ../OpenGL_1_5_1/openglutil_num.so lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 10 Apr 10 10:43 PIL -> ../PIL_0_3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 mts mts 10 Apr 10 10:43 Pmw -> ../Pmw_0_7 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root other 10 Apr 10 10:43 v3d -> ../v3d_1_1

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[Distutils-sig] distutils charter and interscript
by John Skaller April 29, 2018

April 29, 2018

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eggs and Python Unicode variants (UCS2, UCS4)
by Martijn Faassen May 29, 2009

May 29, 2009

Hi there, In the lxml project (http://codespeak.net/lxml), we've just noticed the following problem with lxml eggs: you can easy_install an egg that won't work for your Python. This is because Python can be compiled with either 2 or 4 bytes unicode as its internal representation. Any egg that contains compiled C code that uses unicode such as lxml will run into trouble: if it's compiled with a 4 bytes unicode Python, it won't work on a 2 bytes unicode Python, and vice versa. This problem is fairly common in Linux. Many distributions such as Ubuntu and Fedora compile their python with 4 bytes unicode internal representation. If you compile a Python interpreter by hand it defaults to 2 bytes unicode, however. Hand-building a Python interpreter is done fairly commonly by Linux sysadmins for various reasons. It would therefore be very nice if it became possible to make eggs for the different unicode compilation options of Python. This configuration dimension is a real world issue for any binary Python module that does anything with unicode text.. In an earlier mail to this list: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2005-October/005222.html M.-A. Lemburg and Phillip Eby had the following discussion: [MAL] >>Please make sure that your eggs catch all possible >>Python binary build dimensions: >> >>* Python version >>* Python Unicode variant (UCS2, UCS4) >>* OS name >>* OS version >>* Platform architecture (e.g. 32-bit vs. 64-bit) [PJE] >As far as I know, all of this except the Unicode variant is captured in >distutils' get_platform(). And if it's not, it should be, since it >affects any other kind of bdist mechanism. I'm not sure whether this means this needs to be escalated from setuptools to the Python interpreter level itself. With this mail, I've done the job escalating this lxml problem to what appears to be the right place, though. :) Thanks, Martijn

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unicode bug in distutils
by Tarek Ziadé April 5, 2009

April 5, 2009

Hello, I have created a setup.py file for distirbution and I bumped into a small bug when i tried to set my name in the contact field (Tarek Ziadé) Using string (utf8 file): setup( maintainer="Tarek Ziadé" ) leads to: File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/command/register.py", line 162, in send_metadata auth) File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/command/register.py", line 257, in post_to_server value = unicode(value).encode("utf-8") UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 10: ordinal not in range(128) Using unicode: setup( maintainer=u"Tarek Ziadé" ) leads to: File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5/distutils/dist.py", line 1094, in write_pkg_file file.write('Author: %s\n' % self.get_contact() ) UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xe9' in position 18: ordinal not in range(128) I would propose a patch for this problem but i don't know what would be the best input (i guess unicode for names) Regards Tarek -- Tarek Ziadé | Association AfPy | www.afpy.org Blog FR | http://programmation-python.org Blog EN | http://tarekziade.wordpress.com/

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Adventures with x64, VS7 and VS8 on Windows
by Mark Hammond March 22, 2008

March 22, 2008

Hi all, I hope the cross-post is appropriate. I've started playing with getting the pywin32 extensions building under the AMD64 architecture. I started building with Visual Studio 8 (it was what I had handy) and I struck a few issues relating to the compiler version that I thought worth sharing. * In trying to build x64 from a 32bit VS7 (ie, cross-compiling via the PCBuild directory), the python.exe project fails with: pythoncore fatal error LNK1112: module machine type 'X86' conflicts with target machine type 'AMD64' is this a known issue, or am I doing something wrong? * The PCBuild8 project files appear to work without modification (I only tried native compilation here though, not a cross-compile) - however, unlike the PCBuild directory, they place all binaries in a 'PCBuild8/x64' directory. While this means that its possible to build for multiple architectures from the same source tree, it makes life harder for tools like 'distutils' - eg, distutils already knows about the 'PCBuild' directory, but it knows nothing about either PCBuild8 or PCBuild8/x64. A number of other build processes also know to look inside a PCBuild directory (eg, Mozilla), so instead of formalizing PCBuild8, I think we should merge PCBuild8 into PCBuild. This could mean PCBuild/vs7 and PCBuild/vs8 directories with the "project" files, but binaries would still be generated in the 'PCBuild' (or PCBuild/x64) directory. This would mean the same tree isn't capable of hosting 2 builds from different VS compilers, but I think that is reasonable (if it's a problem, just have multiple source directories). I understand that PCBuild8 is not "official", but in the assumption that future versions of Python will use a compiler later than VS7, it makes sense to me to clean this up now - what are others opinions on this? * Re the x64 directory used by the PCBuild8 process. IMO, it makes sense to generate x64 binaries to their own directory - my expectation is that cross-compiling between platforms is a reasonable use-case, and we should support multiple achitectures for the same compiler version. This would mean formalizing the x64 directory in both 'PCBuild' and distutils, and leaving other external build processes to update as they support x64 builds. Does this make sense? Would this fatally break other scripts used for packaging (eg, the MSI framework)? * Wide characters in VS8: PC/pyconfig.h defines PY_UNICODE_TYPE as 'unsigned short', which corresponds with both 'WCHAR' and 'wchar' in previous compiler versions. VS8 defines this as wchar_t, which I'm struggling to find a formal definition for beyond being 2 bytes. My problem is that code which assumes a 'Py_UNICODE *' could be used in place of a 'WCHAR *' now fails. I believe the intent on Windows has always been "PyUNICODE == 'native unicode'" - should PC/pyconfig.h reflect this (ie, should pyconfig.h grow a version specific definition of PyUNICODE as wchar_t)? * Finally, as something from left-field which may well take 12 months or more to pull off - but would there be any interest to moving the Windows build process to a cygwin environment based on the existing autoconf scripts? I know a couple of projects are doing this successfully, including Mozilla, so it has precendent. It does impose a greater burden on people trying to build on Windows, but I'd suggest that in recent times, many people who are likely to want to build Python on Windows are already likely to have a cygwin environment. Simpler mingw builds and nuking MSVC specific build stuff are among the advantages this would bring. It is not worth adding this as "yet another windows build option" - so IMO it is only worth progressing with if it became the "blessed" build process for windows - if there is support for this, I'll work on it as the opportunity presents itself... I'm (obviously) only suggesting we do this on the trunk and am happy to make all agreed changes - but I welcome all suggestions or critisisms of this endeavour... Cheers, Mark

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bdist_wininst and Vista User Account Control (UAC)
by Mark Hammond March 10, 2008

March 10, 2008

The pywin32 extensions require (well, prefer) administrative access during installation - certain files are copied to the System32 directory and the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE is written to. Also, if I understand correctly, if Python happened to be installed into "\Program Files", admin access would be required to create any files in that directory tree - I'm not sure what permissions the \PythonXX directory are created with, but its not unreasable to assume that some shops might choose to secure that directory similarly to "\Program Files". The simplest way to achieve this for bdist_wininst installations is to include some magic in a "manifest". I've confirmed that once this magic is added, programs created by bdist_wininst get the little "shield" icon overlay and prompt for elevation before starting the executable. A problem here is that not all installations will require admin access - eg, a user who installed Python just for themselves will not need elevation to install an extension. A solution here would be for the installer to *not* be marked as requiring elevation, then sniffing the registry to make an educated guess (eg, HKLM\Software\Python\PythonCore\2.5 existing could indicate admin access is required). If it finds elevation is required, it would spawn another copy of itself with elevation requested, and terminate. This will have a side-effect of meaning the installer never gets the "shield" overlay, meaning the user will not be expecting to be prompted - but that is something we can live with. However, there is a complication here. Any "pure python" packages are not tied to a particular Python version, so the user can choose what installed Python version to use. Hence, in the general case, we can only determine if admin is required after the UI has opened and the user has selected the Python version. Arranging for the new "elevated" child process at this point will be (a) ugly, as the UI will vanish before the child process displays its GUI and (b) would require additional command-line processing logic - ie, passing the target directory to the child process. If we could make the determination *before* the GUI opens, it would appear seamless and would not require special command-line handling (the child process just does everything) So I see a few alternatives, but none are very desirable: * Only make this "admin required" check if a specific version of Python is necessary (ie, the package contains extension modules). This would leave pure-python packages out in the cold. * Live with the ugly UI that would result in performing that check after the Python version has been selected, and add the command-line processing necessary to make this work. * Ignore the issue and try to educate people that they must explicitly use "Run as Administrator" for such packages on Vista. I'm wondering if anyone has any opinions or thoughts on how we should handle this? Cheers, Mark

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Package in both setup_requires and install_requires will not be installed
by Michael Hoffman Jan. 19, 2008

Jan. 19, 2008

Joshua Boverhof previously reported this in <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2007-March/007436.html>. If you specify a package in setup_requires it will be built in the current directory. But even if it is in install_requires as well, it won't be installed because the requirement is already satisfied at setup time by the package in the build directory. Is there a workaround for this?

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buildout, zc.recipe.testrunner and tests_require
by Nathan R. Yergler Nov. 15, 2007

Nov. 15, 2007

I'm using zc,buildout to manage the development of a very simple web application. I'd like to have a simple test runner that runs my doctests, but have run into a slight problem. I'm using wsgi_intercept to aid in testing, but unfortunately wsgi_intercept isn't a proper Python package ("yet", according to Titus). So I have a package-i-fied version in my svn repository and in my buildout.cfg I specify: develop = . ./wsgi_intercept_ I initially was using the "interpreter" option to get a Python interpreter with my eggs on the path, and running "./bin/python setup.py test". That, however, required me to list wsgi_intercept as a package requirement, when I really want to list it as a testing requirement. Moving it to a testing requirement caused it's develop egg not to be on the PYTHONPATH, so setuptools tries to find it. Which it couldn't. I tried using zc.recipe.testbrowser, thinking that maybe it'd look at the tests_require for the target eggs, but no such luck. The testrunner also seems pretty promiscuous in looking for things to test (it tries to import my eggs directory and test them which predictably doesn't work), but that's another story. So... any suggestions on using zc.buildout along with testing dependencies (generally or with zc.recipe.testrunner)? Thanks, Nathan

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"activate" script for virtualenv
by Matt Good Oct. 20, 2007

Oct. 20, 2007

I just set up a little script so that I can activate a particular virtualenv and easily exit it. Basically it just invokes a new bash subshell and sets the PATH to include the current bin dir: mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ cat activate bash --init-file .bash_init mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ cat .bash_init . ~/.bash_profile export PATH="`pwd`/bin:$PATH" So running ./activate will set up your path in the subshell, and exiting will restore your normal PATH. I don't really like running ~/.bash_profile again b/c I actually end up with it re-adding some stuff that's already in the PATH, but otherwise I lost my normal prompt coloring. Someone with more bash-fu know how to fix that? mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ which python /usr/local/bin/python mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ ./activate mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ which python /home/mgood/python-envs/trac/bin/python mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ exit mgood@sjl-dev1:~/python-envs/trac$ which python /usr/local/bin/python -- Matt

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Enabling local distutils.cfg usage
by Tres Seaver Oct. 9, 2007

Oct. 9, 2007

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 When building a virtual environment, I'd like to be able to store global distutils configuration options which are custom to that environment. However, both setuptools and distutils expect to read / write that file relative to the directory of 'distutils.__file__', which is located in the *source* environment under virtualenv 0.8.4:: $ ~/projects/source/bin/virtualenv /tmp/virtual New python executable in /tmp/virtual/bin/python Installing setuptools.............done. [/tmp] $ cd /tmp/virtual/ [/tmp/virtual] $ bin/python -c "import distutils; print distutils.__file__" /home/tseaver/projects/source/lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.pyc The simplest way I can think of to make 'distutils.__file__' local to the virtual environment is to make an empty local 'distutils' package, which pulls in the source version by hacking '__path__'. However, because the virtual environment forces the 'real_prefix' library so high in the path, I also need to hack my own library in higher (in 'sitecustomize.py'):: [/tmp/virtual] $ patch -p1 < ../local_distutils.patch patching file lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.py patching file lib/python2.4/sitecustomize.py [/tmp/virtual] $ bin/python -c "import distutils; print distutils.__file__" /tmp/virtual/lib/python2.4/distutils/__init__.py [/tmp/virtual] Probably it would make more sense to fix the path in the SITE_PY inside virtualenv's support-files; virtualenv could then just make the near-empty local 'distutils' package with the correct '__path__'. I have attached the patch I used to fix up the local environment ('local_distutils.patch' in the example above). Tres. - -- =================================================================== Tres Seaver +1 540-429-0999 tseaver(a)palladion.com Palladion Software "Excellence by Design" http://palladion.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG+rc5+gerLs4ltQ4RAtySAKCR2RYNq/zJUnEAU/eNz5vsyYZ3ZgCeJ7lB EO0xuEmqiLKZ86ZaK3CqfeU= =r8N9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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