[Distutils] zip_safe=False not being respected? [it gets worse]

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 12:02 PM 4/18/2008 -0400, Alexander Michael wrote:
>On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Chris Withers 
><chris at simplistix.co.uk> wrote:
> > Alexander Michael wrote:
> >
> > > By default, setuptools enabled setup.py's install eggs (either zipped
> > > or unzipped) so that you can multiple version installed (but only one
> > > active, of course). If you want to install just a single version as a
> > > standard python package directory, then use the
> > > --single-version-externally-managed option as described in the
> > > documentation:
> > >
> >
> >  $ python2.4 setup.py install --home=$INSTANCE \
> >                              --single-version-externally-managed
> >  running install
> >  error: You must specify --record or --root when building system packages
> >
> >  Sadly neither the --record or --root options appear to be documented
> > anywhere...
>
>That is sad. There is a hint from "python setup.py install --help":
>   --root                               install everything relative to this
>                                        alternate root directory
>   --record                             filename in which to record list of
>                                        installed files
>
>Maybe they're provided by standard distutils? I know the seuptools
>documentation doesn't reiterate anything about distutils, just the
>additions.

Correct: --root and --record are standard distutils options.  In this 
case, you want --record, not --root.

The reason this option requires either --root or --record, is so that 
you have a way to know what was installed and uninstall it.  In the 
--root case, everything installed will be under a single directory 
tree, and in the --record case, you'll have a list of the files.