[Distutils] install_recommends proposal

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2007 at 10:38:49PM +0200, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>> I understand how the name "install_recommends" could be confusing 
>> terminology
> 
> Yes it is
> 
>> given the way package managers use the term 'recommended 
>> packages', which means extra that you could install too to get more 
>> features. "install_prefers" instead?
>>
>> An alternative would be to expand the syntax of install_requires and 
>> extra_require to allow the recommended version number hint. Something 
>> like this:
>>
>> install_requires = [
>>     'foo (1.2.1)',
>>     'bar >= 1.3 (1.3.2)',
>>    ]
> 
> A really human-readable version would be:
> 
>   install_requires = [
>       'foo (prefer 1.2.1)',
>       'bar >= 1.3 (prefer 1.3.2)',
>      ]

Or make 'prefer' an actual version operator like == or >=:

   install_requires = [
       'foo prefer 1.2.1',
       'bar >=1.3, prefer 1.3.2',
       ]

The advantage of including it into install_requires is that you avoid 
redudancy by not having to repeat the list of required packages twice.

Another advantage might be that the information would be written to a 
place that we already know (EGG-INFO/requires.txt) and have extraction 
tools for. The only problem with that would be that eggs with a "modern" 
EGG-INFO like that would not be installable on older setuptools versions 
that know nothing about the 'prefer' operator. Then again, that would 
also be the case with Martijn's proposed install_recommends parameter.


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