[Distutils] Just downloading an egg

[Jeff Rush]

Pascoe, S (Stephen) wrote:
> I often just want to do with easy_install is download an egg from pypi without installing it.  I've studied the easy_install documentation and never found a way to do it.  Even giving it the "-d" option results in easy-install.pth being created and other unwanted stuff.
> 
> Looking at the setuptools pydoc I worked out a way to do it:
> 
>>>> import setuptools
>>>> d = setuptools.Distribution()
>>>> d.fetch_build_egg(requirement)
> 
> Voila! the egg is downloaded into cwd.  It even seems built an egg from a tarball.
> 
> My question is, can I rely on this feature and is it the best way of doing what I want?  I'd like to use it in my code and hope it stays.  It would be ideal if I could do this through easy_install.

Actually this command will download the egg and just the egg:

    easy_install -zmaxd . -N SQLObject

or if you want the egg -and- its dependencies (as eggs too):

    easy_install -zmaxd . SQLObject

-Jeff