Author: tarek.ziade Date: Tue Mar 30 23:53:35 2010 New Revision: 79517 Log: various typo fixes, and removed a section that is not really useful Modified: peps/trunk/pep-0376.txt Modified: peps/trunk/pep-0376.txt ============================================================================== --- peps/trunk/pep-0376.txt (original) +++ peps/trunk/pep-0376.txt Tue Mar 30 23:53:35 2010 @@ -21,38 +21,11 @@ distributions on a system. It also describes a reference implementation for the standard library. -In the past an attempt was made to create a installation database (see PEP 262 +In the past an attempt was made to create an installation database (see PEP 262 [#pep262]_). -Combined with PEP 345, the current proposal superseds PEP 262. +Combined with PEP 345, the current proposal supersedes PEP 262. -Definitions -=========== - -A **distribution** is a collection of files, which can be Python modules, -extensions, or data. A distribution is managed by a special module called -`setup.py` which contains a call to the `distutils.core.setup` function. -The arguments passed to that function describe the distribution, like -its `name`, its `version`, and so on. - -Distutils provides, among other things, **commands** that can be called -through the shell using the `setup.py` script. An `sdist` command is provided -for instance to create a source distribution archive. An `install` command -is also provided to perform an installation of the distribution in the Python -installation the script is invoked with:: - - $ python setup.py install - -See the Distutils [#distutils]_ documentation for more information. - -Once installed, the elements are located in various places in the system, like: - -- Python's site-packages (Python modules, Python modules organized into - packages, Extensions, etc.) -- Python's `include` directory. -- Python's `bin` or `Script` directory. -- Custom paths. -- Etc. Rationale ========= @@ -66,11 +39,11 @@ How distributions are installed ------------------------------- -Right now, when a distribution is installed in Python, every element it -contains is installed in various directories. +Right now, when a distribution is installed in Python, every element can +be installed in a different directory. For instance, `Distutils` installs the pure Python code in the `purelib` -directory, which is `lib\python2.6\site-packages` for unix-like systems and +directory, which is ``lib\python2.6\site-packages`` for unix-like systems and Mac OS X, or `Lib/site-packages` under Python's installation directory for Windows. @@ -193,10 +166,10 @@ This `.dist-info` directory will contain these files: -- `METADATA`: the metadata, as described in PEP 345, PEP 241 and PEP 214. +- `METADATA`: the metadata, as described in PEP 345, PEP 314 and PEP 241. - `RECORD`: list of installed files - `INSTALLER`: the installer that was used -- `REQUESTED`: a marker to now if the project was installed as a dependency +- `REQUESTED`: a marker to know if the project was installed as a dependency or not. @@ -207,7 +180,7 @@ time when installing a source distribution using the `install` command. Notice that when installing a binary distribution created with `bdist` command or a `bdist`-based command, the `RECORD` file will be installed as well since -these commands use the `install` command to create a binary distributions. +these commands use the `install` command to create binary distributions. The `RECORD` file holds the list of installed files. These correspond to the files listed by the `record` option of the `install` command, and will @@ -294,7 +267,7 @@ install them. In these cases, it is useful to track which distributions were installed purely as a dependency, so if their dependent distribution is later uninstalled, the user can be alerted -to the orphaned dependency. +of the orphaned dependency. If a distribution is installed by direct user request (the usual case), a file REQUESTED is added to the .dist-info directory of the @@ -306,7 +279,7 @@ created. The ``install`` command of distutils by default creates the REQUESTED -file. It accepts --requested and --no-requested options to explicitly +file. It accepts ``--requested`` and ``--no-requested`` options to explicitly specify whether the file is created. If a package that was already installed on the system as a dependency @@ -355,7 +328,7 @@ ``.dist-info`` directory that contains a METADATA that matches `name` for the `name` metadata. - This function only returns the first result founded, as no more than one + This function only returns the first result founded, since no more than one values are expected. If the directory is not found, returns None. - ``get_file_users(path)`` -> iterator of ``Distribution`` instances.