[Distutils] my wishlist for easy_install

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 10:37 AM 8/29/2007 +0200, Toni Mueller wrote:
>I'd really like to see these two features in easy_install which I can't
>find right now:
>
>  1 - coexist with the operating system/recognize packages which are
>      installed via operating system means
>  2 - remove packages
>
>Currently, when I want to easy_install a package, it starts downloading
>all sorts of stuff from PYPI although I have already similar (the same
>- maybe other versions) packages in my system which I installed via
>the operating system's package manager.

As of Python 2.5, packages installed using the distutils will have 
.egg-info files that tell setuptools they are installed...  assuming 
that the OS distributor doesn't remove them.

If you have a version of Python <2.5, you will need to either 
manually create .egg-info files or else live with easy_install 
installing duplicates.


>I'd also be able to say something like
>
>easy_install -r package
>
>to remove such a package, but only if I installed it via easy_install
>in the first place, leaving operating system installed packages alone.

This is a feature that may appear in setuptools 0.7 some time in the 
future, but it probably won't be an easy_install option (as 
easy_install already has way too many options).