You just have to give up in order to realize that this can be done rather easily:

from distutils.command.install_headers import install_headers

class modified_install_headers(install_headers):

def finalize_options(self): install_headers.finalize_options(self) self.install_dir = \ os.path.join(os.path.split(self.install_dir)[0], 'Scientific')

setup( ... , cmdclass = {'install_headers': modified_install_headers})

Ah, brilliant! This is the sort of thing that should go into the documentation. Seeing one example of this overriding will help the intelligent reader a lot with distutils customization. -- Jack Jansen | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com | ++++ if you agree copy these lines to your sig ++++ www.oratrix.nl/~jack | see http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm