Mark Sienkiewicz <sienkiew@stsci.edu> writes:
Ben Finney wrote:
What of distributions installed via setuptools that are *not* installed as eggs?
I don't know. Can you tell me more about that?
It's rather unfortunate that the term “egg” has been used to mean two rather different things in setuptools. AIUI, an “egg” is one possible *format* for a distribution: a zipped collection of the distribution files and metadata files <URL:http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs>. It's supposed to be equivalent to a Java “jar”, in that it can be copied around easily and imported from directly via setuptools's infrastructure. This is offset by the relative opacity of it: it's more difficult to integrate with a proper OS-level package manager, so many developers deliberately *avoid* building or distributing eggs. When building a distribution via setuptools, an egg is *optional*; the distribution may be in an egg, or it may be in a regular tarball or whatever. When installed, it may or may not be installed as an egg <URL:http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools#install-run-easy-install-...>. The confusion is compounded by the fact that setuptools creates its metadata in a directory named ‘foo.egg-info/’, even if the distribution is not built to an egg and never will be. Any of the above could be wrong: I'm not a setuptools expert either, and have only rubbed up against its rough edges trying to get things working. -- \ “I installed a skylight in my apartment. The people who live | `\ above me are furious!” —Steven Wright | _o__) | Ben Finney