[Distutils] Binaries for Windows (Header installation)

[M.-A. Lemburg]

"Moore, Paul" wrote:
> 
> > It would be nice, if the wininst installer would allow even more
> > flexibility, e.g. allow setting the install directory (this would
> > then have to generate a .pth file to properly setup the Python path),
> 
> Not necessarily. All I care about is that I absolutely will not accept the
> default of putting modules in the Python executable directory. I feel that
> this is completely wrong, and needs change. There is a perfectly respectable
> Lib/site-packages directory, but Python ignores it (on Windows). The fix is
> a 1-line change to site.py, which I understand is not done because of some
> form of policy issue, rather than for any technical reason (ie, Guido
> doesn't like it...)

I don't know why distutils installs in Python\Lib\ instead of
e.g. Lib\site-packages\, but I do know that you override this
option using setup.cfg, so that your particular installer
installs in a different destination directory.

The problem of course is that distutils default setting will
become a standard and changing the location would only cause more
confusion...
 
> I have hacked site.py to override this. I want to override the default
> location where modules are installed, as well. I simply will not use an
> installer which dumps arbitrary modules in the Python executable directory.
> 
> The wininst installer is hackable, as it is basically an exe prepended onto
> a zip file, so I can unzip the distribution wherever I like. But I wish I
> didn't need to do this. OTOH, I don't want my Windows "add/remove programs"
> applet cluttered with loads of Python modules, either (which I believe is
> also something the wininst installer does). So personally, I would prefer to
> just have a zip which I could install myself...
> 
> Two questions - is the bdist_zip option functional (no time to try it just
> now)? And how can we persuade package authors to provide a bdist_zip version
> of their packages as well as an installer version?

There is no such thing as bdist_zip; bdist_dumb is probably what
you meant and yes, it works the way you describe.
 
> (Sorry - I HATE installers, and particularly so when I have no way of
> controlling or limiting what they do...)
> 
> Paul.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
______________________________________________________________________
Company & Consulting:                           http://www.egenix.com/
Python Pages:                           http://www.lemburg.com/python/