[Distutils] Re: bdist_deb patches

[Sean Reifschneider]

>That seems like a lot of work.  Is it really worth it?

Probably not.  I'll leave that decision up to you, and plan to bug you
if the format changes such that having this would have prevented code
from breaking.

>rfc822.formatdate is broken in my (Debian's) python2.1 and
>python2.2 in that it uses strftime (and thus day and month

Ok, was just wondering.  Less code means less to maintain, but if it
doesn't work then use the other implementation.

>Using debchange to generate the changelog entry would eliminate
>the need for parseaddr and formatdate altogether, so perhaps that
>is the best way to go.  Comments?

That seems like a win.  Adding a fake changelog entry is just a few
lines of code, right?  Stripping it out shouldn't be too bad I would
guess, just a few more lines with a regex?  Checking for errors in the
run a few more?

Wouldn't that make it more accurate, allow it to possibly follow changes
to the Debian code without modification of the Python code, and get rid
of a bunch of other code?

>It looks like you don't use sdist to build your source distribution,
>since it includes files which aren't in the MANIFEST.

That's true.  I have my own process for building the source tar which
involves CVS, tags, a clean checkout of that tag from the repository,
and running a script if present.  Since not all my code releases are
Python, I'd prefer if I could continue releasing code in that way, but
would consider another option if required.

>file from the doc subdirectory to MANIFEST to fix this, I think.
>A better solution might be to add 'graft doc' to MANIFEST.in.

Doing this has resolved that problem.  Thanks.  Looks like it builds
fine.

>As far as I can tell, README and README.txt are the only doc-type files
>that distutils treats specially.  (They automatically get added to the
>MANIFEST.)  Are there any PEPs or other standards which suggest
>other standard names for doc files?

In my case, I don't have README in doc, I have documentation for the
system in there.  README is in the top directory.

>After sleeping on it, my current thinking is to drop 'doc' from the
>list, and only look for files (not directories).  After seeing
>jotweb2, I'm think of adding 'LICENSE' and 'LICENCE' to the list.
>Comments?

That's probably a good idea.  Having the license in the package is a
good thing.

Sean
-- 
 I think the net needs some Viagra today.  It's just not performing...
                 -- Mike Loseke, 2000
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995.  Qmail, Python, SysAdmin