[Distutils] disappointed by setupTools

[Matt Good]

On Mon, 2006-10-16 at 16:57 -0400, Pierre Imbaud wrote:
> I just discovered scripts dont get installed directly (in
> /usr/local/bin), instead a wrapper in installed, that calls the
> script. So an extra file is involved, and extra code, every time the
> script is called. Makes some overhead, and it breaks a simple
> mechanism I use: my script is able to perform many actions, based on
> its name (much like cp, mv and ln are the same executable). at
> install, I need to make symlinks to the script, one per action, and
> this was automated: this is broken by the wrapping. No big deal, just
> makes things less simple.

Actually installing scripts with setuptools is very easy:
http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools#automatic-script-creation

In your entry points simply put the names of the scripts you want and
the Python function that script will run.  Now you don't need to do your
own symlink hack to get it all to work.  Just put the functions into a
Python module and list them in setup.py.

The setuptools method also fixes problems with making scripts work in a
cross-platform manner, makes sure your scripts work correctly if someone
installs two versions of the same package on their system, and ensures
that scripts are run with the correct Python version in case it's not
the default Python executable on the system.

-- 
Matt Good <matt at matt-good.net>