[Distutils] SetupTools: Running EasyInstall From Within A Script?

[Jim Fulton]

Alexander Michael wrote:
> I am attempting to put together a simple package installation
> replicator to make it easier to pull updates from a local repository
> (as an alternative setup to a shared NFS directory). The idea is to
> put a requirements list and the necessary eggs in a local shared
> directory and then have a script on each computer do a quick check to
> see if any updates are needed and install them if there is an update.
> Is it possible to ask setuptools to install a package from within a
> Python script without resorting to os.system or friends? I tried
> browsing the source, but it was difficult to follow the call chain
> from the easy_install script to the actual method being called.

Technically yes, but not practically.

You might look at the easy_install module in zc.buildout,
which tries to provide a programmatic interface, although even it
resorts to os.spawn at times.  See:

   http://svn.zope.org/zc.buildout/trunk/src/zc/buildout/easy_install.txt?view=markup

Jim

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