Mailman 3 July 2009 - 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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Low Level API for translating distutils/setuptools metatdata to Debian metadata
by Brian Sutherland 16 Aug '09

16 Aug '09

Hi, I've just published a very small library that does three things so far: * Provides a mapping between python project names and Debian binary/source package names * Converts setuptools versions to Debian versions while maintaining sort order * Can introspect an .egg-info directory to figure out the Debian dependencies for use in the debian/control file. It can also handle/understand extras (I Hope!) It's basically an attempt to find a common ground between all the projects doing automated Python->Debian packaging. I have a feeling everyone is re-implementing this code all the time. The code is here: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/van.pydeb/ And an example of direct use in a packaging situation with complex dependencies is here: http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-zope/zope.component/trunk/debian/rules?vi… -- Brian Sutherland

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[Distribute] Python 3 porting effort - plans proposal for 0.7/0.8
by Tarek Ziadé 11 Aug '09

11 Aug '09

Hello, (Following Ronald's mail about porting setuptools to Py3k (http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2009-June/012108.html) and Lennart's effort for that too) Since setuptools doesn't exist yet under Python 3, I think we can simplify the "porting to Py 3k" problem by starting a python 3 only version for the Distribute project and flip our porting problems into the other way. Here's my proposal, after 0.6 is released : - Let's start a "0.8" branch right now, by removing all the bootstraping code and by splitting and renaming all elements right away. The setuptools package will be renamed in something else, the pkg_resources.py module and easy_install script too. Those will be three distinct distributions. To use them, people will have to change their import lines, and install_requires lines. - Let's then backport the 0.8 version into a 0.7 version, compatbile with Python 2.x and with the required bootstraping so it works in 2.x environments We might end up with a very ugly 0.7, but who cares this would boosts Python 3 adoption imho Opinions ? Cheers Tarek -- Tarek Ziadé | http://ziade.org

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idea for Distribute: make unzipped eggs be the default
by Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn 02 Aug '09

02 Aug '09

Folks: I have been keeping a running tally of people who have trouble with zipped eggs and the trouble goes away when they have unzipped eggs instead. I just added the newest entry: someone was trying to build a package with py2exe, and configuring their distutils config file to always unzip eggs fixed the problem: http://bugs.python.org/setuptools/issue33 # zipped eggs cause various problems -- perhaps set default setting to unzipped? Perhaps the Distribute project should consider installing eggs unzipped by default. It would avoid a slew of problems (see that ticket for a catalog of problems), would be fully backwards compatible (it is what many people already do, per the suggested workaround, and I've never heard a report of a problem due to an *unzipped* egg), and I think it might improve performance a bit. (Yes, that's right -- we haven't done a real measurement of performance, but the few times that people briefly glanced at performance it seemed like zipping the eggs made them slower to load, not faster.) Regards, Zooko

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Re: [Distutils] Cache PYTHONPATH? (Re: make unzipped eggs be the default)
by P.J. Eby 02 Aug '09

02 Aug '09

At 10:35 PM 7/28/2009 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote: >On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 9:40 PM, P.J. Eby<pje(a)telecommunity.com> wrote: > > At 09:22 PM 7/28/2009 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote: > >> > >> I can see how this could go quite wrong, but maybe if installers touch > >> some file in the library directory anytime a package is > >> installed/reinstalled/removed/etc, > > > > You mean, like, the mtime of the directory itself? Â ;-) > >Do directory mtimes get recursively updated? I don't think they do. That's not necessary; if imports use a cached listdir, then the children will get handled recursively. >So if you have a layout: > >site-packages/ > zope/ > interface/ > __init__.py > >And you update the package and update __init__.py, the mtime of >site-packages doesn't change, does it? Nope, but at the top level, the fact that 'zope' is present is unchanged, as is the presence of an 'interface' subdirectory. >I'm saying if there was a file in site-packages/last_updated that gets >touched everytime an installer does anything in site-packages, then >you could cache (between processes) the lookups. Since each invocation of the interpreter can have a different PYTHONPATH, the cache has to be per-directory, not global. If it's per-directory, then there's no real benefit over runtime caching, since you now have to open and read a file (instead of just reading the directory). And as I said, it's not realistic to think that opening and reading a file is going to beat opening and reading a directory for speed.

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Re: [Distutils] setuptools: can I specify different install_requires for different python versions?
by P.J. Eby 31 Jul '09

31 Jul '09

At 03:04 PM 7/28/2009 -0400, Matthew Wilson wrote: >I have a package that depends on the multiprocessing package, which >got added to the standard library as of 2.6. > >So, for only those people using python versions before 2.6, I want to >require they install multiprocessing. > >Is this possible? Yes. Write your setup.py to check the Python version, and build up the requirements in a variable before calling setup().

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Re: [Distutils] Cache PYTHONPATH? (Re: make unzipped eggs be the default)
by P.J. Eby 29 Jul '09

29 Jul '09

At 09:22 PM 7/28/2009 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote: >I can see how this could go quite wrong, but maybe if installers >touch some file in the library directory anytime a package is >installed/reinstalled/removed/etc, You mean, like, the mtime of the directory itself? ;-) Really, there's no need for a file. It seems really, really unlikely that there's any common filesystem where reading a file containing the (maybe out-of-date) contents of a directory is faster than just reading the directory itself. And, courtesy of the time machine, there's even a 'dircache' module already in the stdlib. i.e. if you use dircache.listdir() in place of regular listdir, you'll only have to read the directory once. (Another way to do this, of course, would be to have importlib importer objects use the same logic to keep a cache of their target directory.)

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