[Distutils] resource_filename() breaks cxfreeze (py2exe?)

[Robby Dermody]

Hi guys,

The subject line no doubt tells you all something you already know. This 
morning, I didn't even know that setuputils existed, so excuse my 
ignorance on the topic.

Basically, I have an application that makes use of a python web 
application development library called nevow. The current version of 
nevow (0.5.0) makes use of resource_filename() to get the paths of 
certain static files that it uses. Things work fine when my app is not 
frozen, but after I freeze it with cx_freeze resource_filename() turns 
out to be a breakage point. I would think the same kind of thing would 
happen with py2exe. See the traceback at the end of this message for 
more info.

Once I freeze the application and run it, my sys.path is set to
['/home/robbyd/dev/inquest/dist/inquest-director-0.7.0-1/inquest-director', 
'/home/robbyd/dev/inquest/dist/inquest-director-0.7.0-1']
(Meaning the frozen zip file executable, 'inquest-director', and its 
parent path.)

Normally this works fine, due to zipimporter. However, with the static 
files nevow is attempting to locate with resource_filename(), it seems 
that the problem is that, resource_filename() wants to look into the zip 
file but it doesn't know how to do so. (I have not done too much 
research into how this function works, so I may be missing the point 
here.) What I'd like to know is why this is the case, and what may 
happen when resource_filename() gets used in more libraries whose users 
freeze their applications with cxfreeze/py2exe/macmillian/etc.  Is this 
a move by setuptools to take over the world (of python packaging 
utilities)? ;)

Thanks in advance for any feedback that is offered. At this point I'm 
just unsure if this is more of a setuptools issue, or more of a 
cx_Freeze issue. I did take a look at setuptools and I was impressed 
with it, but my app has certain requirements that make cx_freeze a good 
choice.

Robby

------
Here's the traceback that I get, with the specific error (note that 
util.resource_filename in webform.py is just an alias to 
pkg_resource.resource_filename):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/robbyd/downloads/cx_Freeze-3.0.1/initscripts/Console.py", 
line 26, in ?
    exec code in m.__dict__
  File "dist/src/inquest/director/director.py", line 33, in ?
  File 
"/home/robbyd/dev/inquest/dist/src/inquest/director/util/twistednet.py", 
line 22, in ?
    from nevow import inevow, static
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/nevow/__init__.py", line 140, in ?
    load(basic_adapters)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/nevow/__init__.py", line 30, in 
load
    compy.registerAdapter(a, clean(o), i)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/nevow/compy.py", line 32, in 
registerAdapter
    adapterFactory = _namedAnyWithBuiltinTranslation(adapterFactory)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/nevow/util.py", line 225, in 
_namedAnyWithBuiltinTranslation
    return namedAny(name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/nevow/util.py", line 78, in 
namedAny
    topLevelPackage = __import__(trialname)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/formless/webform.py", line 42, in ?
    defaultCSS = File(util.resource_filename('formless', 
'freeform-default.css'), 'text/css')
  File 
"/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/setuptools-0.5a13-py2.3.egg/pkg_resources.py", 
line 676, in resource_filename
    return get_provider(package_or_requirement).get_resource_filename(
  File 
"/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/setuptools-0.5a13-py2.3.egg/pkg_resources.py", 
line 1056, in get_resource_filename    raise NotImplementedError(
NotImplementedError: resource_filename() only supported for .egg, not .zip