[Distutils] Choice of dependencies?

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 02:09 PM 12/3/2005 -0800, Robert Kern wrote:
>Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> > At 08:53 PM 12/3/2005 +0000, John J Lee wrote:
> >
> >>Is it possible for a package to depend on one of several packages, with
> >>the user having the option to pick?  For example, my package P might
> >>depend on package A, plus either package B or package C.
> >
> > Interesting; I'd be curious to know what P, B and C translate to in real
> > packages.  :)
>
>P = matplotlib
>B = Numeric
>C = numarray
>D = scipy_core
>
>Until everyone ports their stuff to scipy_core, there are still people
>who need to use numarray or Numeric to be compatible with other packages.

Well, there isn't really a way to do 1-of-N dependencies, since you would 
need a way for the user to pick one to be satisfied by easy_install.  It 
seems like the straightforward thing to do is treat it as an optional 
("extras") dependency, and have the user install matplotlib[Numeric] or 
matplotlib[numarray] accordingly.