I thought some people might find a generic INSTALL file like the one supplied with programs that use ./configure, here is one I prepared that gives a few lines with the most-common-case installation instructions and gives the complete ./setup.py help output. -- Harry Henry Gebel, Senior Developer, Landon House SBS West Dover Hundred, Delaware PyNcurses: python binding for ncurses http://pyncurses.sourceforge.net
On 22 April 2000, Harry Henry Gebel said:
I thought some people might find a generic INSTALL file like the one supplied with programs that use ./configure, here is one I prepared that gives a few lines with the most-common-case installation instructions and gives the complete ./setup.py help output.
To be honest, I've never been a big fan of the "standard installation instructions" modus operandi. Like the 19k of the GPL, once you've read the 15k of the standard Autconf INSTALL file, it's really just a waste to carry it around everywhere. One way of looking at it is this. There are two kinds of software packages in the world: those that build trivially from source, and those that do not. For those that do, the build/install instructions are this: python setup.py install with a proviso about needing privilege to write to the Python library directory on Unix and a reference to the "Installing Python Modules" manual for detail. For those that do not build trivially, the developer will always have to write custom build/install instructions. In the first case, a separate file devoted to build/install is redundant, since building and installing is painless and trivial, and anyways there's a nice manual to explain the process if you need to do anything out of the ordinary. In the second case, generic build/install instructions are worse than useless, since the poor user has to figure out what parts of the INSTALL file still apply, how to augment that information with information from the README (assuming the developer even bothered to document the peculiarities of his package, which is not always a given), etc. And, as long as I'm bitching...
The simplest way to compile this package is:
1. `cd` to the directory containing the package's source code.
Not necessarily. Strictly speaking, the source code to the Distutils is in (eg.) Distutils-0.8/distutils, and you need to be in the Distutils-0.8 directory; similarly for NumPy and PyXML, and no doubt many others. The key is: be in the directory where the setup script lives.
2. Type `./setup.py build` to build the package.
This will only work on Unix, and only if the developer chmod +x'd the setup script. (I do this, since I prefer to type "./setup.py" to "python setup.py". But I always document it as "python setup.py", since the standard incantation must be the same on all major platforms.)
3. Type `su` to become the superuser
Again, Unix-specific.
5. You can remove the compiled extension modules and other installation related files from the source code directory by typing `./setup clean --all clean`.
Actually, "setup.py clean -a" is enough (-a == --all, of course). But this isn't really relevant, since I think the right thing to do is refer people to the "Installing Python Modules" manual. Greg -- Greg Ward - geek gward@ase.com http://starship.python.net/~gward/ Whatever became of eternal truth?
participants (2)
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Greg Ward
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Harry Henry Gebel