On Sep 22, 2005, at 3:56 PM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
At 12:04 PM 9/22/2005 -0700, Rich Burridge wrote:
Phillip J. Eby wrote:
Recently I asked about the inclusion of a "vendor-packages" directory for Python on the Python mailing list.
See the thread started at:
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2005-September/ 300029.html
for the full reasoning behind this request, and the replies I received.
I'm with Terry on this, it needs a better rationale. Why can't you just add a .pth file to the site-packages directory? It seems that would address the issue nicely. (See http://docs.python.org/lib/module-site.html for documentation of the .pth mechanism, which would let you implement a separate vendor- packages directory without modifying Python, and would still allow local overrides of your vendor packages.)
I understand how .pth files work.
The rationale for requesting the "vendor-packages" approach, is that Python files, as supplied by the vendor (Sun, Apple, RedHat ...) with their operating system software, should go in a totally separate base directory, to differentiate them from Python files installed specifically at one site.
Right - I'm proposing you add a vendor-packages.pth file to site- pacakges, that points to a "totally separate base directory" where those files are installed, not that you install the packages themselves under site-packages. To make sure we're disagreeing about the same thing <0.5 wink>, here's what I'm suggesting:
1. Install your packages in /usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages (so far, so good, we agree on this part)
2. Create a 'vendor-packages.pth' file in /usr/lib/python2.4/site- packages, containing the line:
/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages
This will ensure that your vendor-packages "just work", unless locally overridden in site-packages.
vendor-packages.pth should look like this (evil, but practical): import site; site.addsitedir('/usr/lib/python2.4/vendor-packages') Otherwise packages like Numeric, PIL, PyObjC, etc. that take advantage of pth files will not work when installed to that location. -bob