Marius Gedminas wrote:
On Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 10:38:49PM +0200, Martijn Faassen wrote:
I understand how the name "install_recommends" could be confusing terminology
Yes it is
given the way package managers use the term 'recommended packages', which means extra that you could install too to get more features. "install_prefers" instead?
An alternative would be to expand the syntax of install_requires and extra_require to allow the recommended version number hint. Something like this:
install_requires = [ 'foo (1.2.1)', 'bar >= 1.3 (1.3.2)', ]
A really human-readable version would be:
install_requires = [ 'foo (prefer 1.2.1)', 'bar >= 1.3 (prefer 1.3.2)', ]
Or make 'prefer' an actual version operator like == or >=: install_requires = [ 'foo prefer 1.2.1', 'bar >=1.3, prefer 1.3.2', ] The advantage of including it into install_requires is that you avoid redudancy by not having to repeat the list of required packages twice. Another advantage might be that the information would be written to a place that we already know (EGG-INFO/requires.txt) and have extraction tools for. The only problem with that would be that eggs with a "modern" EGG-INFO like that would not be installable on older setuptools versions that know nothing about the 'prefer' operator. Then again, that would also be the case with Martijn's proposed install_recommends parameter. -- http://worldcookery.com -- Professional Zope documentation and training