[Distutils] Re: cleaning up packages

[Randall Hopper]

Harry Henry Gebel:
 |Randall Hopper:
 |> 
 |>      With DistUtils, what's the command to clean up all the kibbles and
 |> bits in the Python tree associated with a package of a given name.  Did I
 |> miss it?  Or is it that not implemented yet?
 |
 |What you are basically talking about is package management for systems
 |that do not have a package manager (or whose package manager is not yet
 |supported by Distutils). I was (and am) planning on working on this 

Glad to hear it!  Sounds like you're familiar with Redhat manager.  I'm
reasonably familiar with the BSD manager.  So if you need someone to bounce
ideas off of I'd be happy to contribute.

 |but have not had a chance to start; and may not for awhile. I do not know
 |what Greg's plans are for this; I was thinking a sort of mini-RPM-like
 |database but have not heard what other ideas people might have.

Here's a thought to spark the discussion.  For simple package listing and
deletion support, how about:

        PYTHON_PREFIX/module-dists/<dist-name>-<version>/CONTENTS

where each module-dist's CONTENTS contains a list of files to delete (and
possibly other cleanup-related commands).

I confess I'm borrowing much from the FreeBSD package manager scheme, which
stores package info in:

       /var/db/pkg/<pkgname>_<version>/+CONTENTS
       ...

Here's Distutils's +CONTENTS file, for example:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/misc/py-distutils/pkg/PLIST?rev=1.2

As you can see, it contains which files to remove when deleting the
package.  Any associated cleanup commands (remove directories, etc.) are
prefixed by an "@" (see bottom for example).

http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/misc/py-distutils/

-- 
Randall Hopper
aa8vb@yahoo.com