Mailman 3 July 2008 - Distutils-SIG

Two fixes (at last)
by Greg Ward 29 Apr '18

29 Apr '18

Hi all -- at long last, I have fixed two problems that a couple people noticed a while ago: * I folded in Amos Latteier's NT patches almost verbatim -- just changed an `os.path.sep == "/"' to `os.name == "posix"' and added some comments bitching about the inadequacy of the current library installation model (I think this is Python's fault, but for now Distutils is slavishly aping the situation in Python 1.5.x) * I fixed the problem whereby running "setup.py install" without doing anything else caused a crash (because 'build' hadn't yet been run). Now, the 'install' command automatically runs 'build' before doing anything; to make this bearable, I added a 'have_run' dictionary to the Distribution class to keep track of which commands have been run. So now not only are command classes singletons, but their 'run' method can only be invoked once -- both restrictions enforced by Distribution. The code is checked into CVS, or you can download a snapshot at http://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/distutils-19990607.tar.gz Hope someone (Amos?) can try the new version under NT. Any takers for Mac OS? BTW, all parties involved in the Great "Where Do We Install Stuff?" Debate should take a good, hard look at the 'set_final_options()' method of the Install class in distutils/install.py; this is where all the policy decisions about where to install files are made. Currently it apes the Python 1.5 situation as closely as I could figure it out. Obviously, this is subject to change -- I just don't know to *what* it will change! Greg -- Greg Ward - software developer gward(a)cnri.reston.va.us Corporation for National Research Initiatives 1895 Preston White Drive voice: +1-703-620-8990 Reston, Virginia, USA 20191-5434 fax: +1-703-620-0913

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Package versioning
by Timothy Docker 29 Apr '18

29 Apr '18

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 29 Apr '18

29 Apr '18

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Re: [Distutils] how to easily consume just the parts of eggs that are good for you
by Stanley A. Klein 09 Oct '09

09 Oct '09

On Wed, April 9, 2008 10:05 pm, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing(a)canterbury.ac.nz> wrote: > Message: 4 > Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:59:39 +1200 > From: Greg Ewing <greg.ewing(a)canterbury.ac.nz> > Subject: Re: [Distutils] how to easily consume just the parts of eggs > that are good for you > To: distutils-sig(a)python.org > > Paul Moore wrote: > >> I believe that Mac OS X goes for an even simpler structure - >> applications store *everything* in the one directory, so that >> install/uninstall is simply a directory copy/remove. > > Yep, and thereby cuts the whole gordian knot, throws the > pieces on the fire and burns them. :-) > > Package managers have always seemed to me to be an > excessively complex solution to a problem that needn't > have existed in the first place. > > I keep hoping that someday Linux will support something > like MacOSX application bundles and frameworks, but I > haven't seen any sign of it yet. > I think this discussion arises because the operating systems we are dealing with are based on very different concepts. Windows and Mac are fundamentally single user systems that have added capabilities for multiple users and are intended to be used with proprietary software. Those considerations lead to minimal dependencies among packages (each proprietary provider needs to control its own package, except for the OS), individual users serving as their own sysadmins, and similar factors. Any dependencies in the proprietary software are hidden from the user because the provider has compiled the dependencies into the binary code they supply. Unix/Linux are fundamentally multi-user systems with a distinct role for a sysadmin. Linux and the BSD's are intended to be used with Free/Open Source Software (FOSS), and Unix originated the Software Tools concept in which individual, relatively simple, separately-developed tools are combined to perform complex tasks. Both FOSS and the Software Tools concept encourage dependencies. The need for package managers arises out of the Unix FHS. If you look at the FHS, it is clearly designed to simplify the job of the sysadmin in a multi-user system that uses FOSS and Software Tools. For example, deciding what to backup and how often to do it in a Unix/Linux system is relatively easy for the sysadmin. All the installed software is in certain top-level directories. All the config files are in /etc. All the logs. caches, spools, web pages, process locks, and certain other data are in /var. All the user data is in /home or its sysadmin-determined equivalents. If the sysadmin needs space, deleting files in /tmp will not cause a problem. In summary, Python is being used on systems that have very different underlying OS use cases. To some extent, the natural use case for Python is closest to that of Linux/Unix. Running Python on Windows/Mac requires adapting for those platforms some of the kinds of tools that simplify operations on Linux/Unix systems. This discussion is essentially about how far that goes, how to accomplish it, and how to remain compatible with the existing tools on Linux/Unix. Stan Klein

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eggs and Python Unicode variants (UCS2, UCS4)
by Martijn Faassen 29 May '09

29 May '09

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 05 Apr '09

05 Apr '09

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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Unicode in distutils meta-data
by Tarek Ziadé 03 Sep '08

03 Sep '08

Hello, I would like to summarize here http://bugs.python.org/issue2562. Currently, distutils does not allows the usage of Unicode for some meta-data fields that should be able to use it. These fields are: - author - maintainer - description - long_description For instance, if you use u"Barnabé" in the author field, the DistributionMetada.write_pkg_file will fail when it tries to serialize the information into a file. The problem is that the current implementation makes the assumption that all fields are ascii string. This won't be a problem in Python 3k, of course, but currently concerns the 2.x series. One possible solution would be to move these fields to Unicode for the 2.6 series. In the meantime, many people are using str type for those fields, so as Martin mentioned, a backward compatibility would be better to support either plain string either Unicode. Other fields should be left imho in ascii, since an url for instance has to be ascii. But maybe it would be better, as Martin mentioned, to use Unicode for all fields. In any case, if we do use Unicode for some fields, we will need to provide the codec to be used to serialize the data in a file. My proposal here would be to add a 'encoding' field in the metadata that defaults to 'utf8', and that would let people explicitely indicates the encoding. I have written a quick patch here of a possible implementation, so you can see the problem : http://bugs.python.org/file9967/unicode.metadata.patch 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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[PATCH][setuptools] Add test_runner support to setup
by Klaus Zimmermann 22 Aug '08

22 Aug '08

Hi all, for our nightly build system I needed the capability to use a different test runner, namely one that outputs junit compatible xml files. In order to support that through the setup.py test command I hacked on setuptools. Is there a simpler way to do this? If not you might want to consider attached patch for addition (Should be against latest svn.) Cheers, Klaus

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How to create deb package
by Lumír Jasiok 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

Hi, I need to create .deb package from source package. I am using distutils. Is there some working bdist_deb extension? What is best practices at this case? Any useful comments will be appreciate. Best Regards Lumir -- Lumír Jasiok VSB-TU Ostrava - Computer centre Tel: +420 59 732 3189 E-mail: lumir.jasiok(a)vsb.cz http://www.vsb.cz

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Bug in setuptools version parsing when appending '.dev'?
by Dave Peterson 06 Aug '08

06 Aug '08

Am I missing something or is the following a bug whereby adding the '.dev' tag is doing something weird? >>> from pkg_resources import parse_requirement as pv >>> pv('1.0a1.dev') < pv('1.0a1') True >>> pv('1.0a1') < pv('1.0') True >>> pv('1.0a1.dev') < pv('1.0.dev') False >>> pv('1.0a1') < pv('1.0.dev') False >>> import setuptools >>> setuptools.__version__ '0.6c8' This is mainly causing us problems when projects try to track alpha and beta level bumps in dependencies, such as when project Foo requires project Bar version 3.0b1 via a requirement like 'Bar >= 3.0b1' (which means we don't want the development prereleases of Bar's first beta release, but anything after that should be okay.) But then when we actually want to release Bar 3.0 and change the version number to just '3.0', suddenly installs fail while we try to run the last set of tests because '3.0.dev' is older than '3.0b1'. If it is not a bug, how do you handle situations where you want to run that last round of testing prior to tagging and building releases? I'd rather do that AFTER making all source changes, and not have to change the version number after the testing. -- Dave

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