[Distutils] distutils data_files and setuptools.pkg_resources are driving me crazy

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 12:56 AM 7/14/2006 +0100, Robin Bryce wrote:
>But all of that is less than ideal. AFAICT, if pkg_resources supported
>egg root relative resource_names, I would be able to do anything I
>want, up to an including writing egg format extensions that do more
>specialist things with data packaged in *eggs*.

I don't have time right now to respond to this thread in more detail, but I 
just want to pop in and point out the *reason* that pkg_resources doesn't 
support egg root relative resource names is because it won't work right 
with system packaging tools like RPM, Debian, etc.  You've pretty much got 
to use the "metadata" API if you want stuff that belongs to the project 
instead of to a package in the project.

The metadata API has some limitations, however (i.e., no file access), but 
these might be able to be lifted in a future release in the 0.7 or later 
series.