[Distutils] Deprecate MANIFEST.in

[David Cournapeau]

Lennart Regebro wrote:
>
> Except for files generated by the sdist/build-process, yes. Why would
> you want to include files in a distribution that are neither
> controlled source files or a result of the sdist/build process?
>   

Depends on what you mean by the build process. I sometimes need to
alleviate distutils limitations with some scripts, or because of
incompatible monkey patching between numpy.distutils, paver and setuptools.

> Now, in which of these cases will the sdist created by me an d by Bobo
> be identical? Right. In the one where the file list is determined by
> which files are version controlled. Can we then really say that this
> case is more dependent on the environment?
>   

It depends on how you set your wildcard. If you use *.$ext, seems to me
that it would alleviate those cases, or do you mean something else ?

> Yes, for me, the sdist will be different if I have a checkout or not,
> since I have the project file in the directory. But that's a rather
> unusual usecase, don't you think?

Well, no, I don't think so. You can't make assumptions about what I
need, as I can't make assumption about what you need. But if we can
agree on a "low level communication format", then you can use your tools
to support your usecases, and I can use mine for my usecases, so that we
can end up with something which works everywhere.

>  Why would I have a non-VCS directory
> of a mdule with a project file in it, that I distribute? If I modify a
> project, it should be checked in.
>   

What if the file is generated ? For example, I have some .c files which
are generated from a script from some templates. I want to include the
generated file in the sdist so people don't need the scripts (and
potential dependencies) to build the software. That's something which is
well supported on autotools, for example.

> Asking the VCS for which files are checked in i sthe most reliable way
> of figuring out which files are actually source files I can think of.
>   

I am not denying that it works for you. I am just trying to argue that
it does not work for me, as I have given several examples already
(generated sources, built documentation, sources obtained from a
different VCS than the original source). So instead of trying to impose
each solution to each other, we should focus on the commonalities,

cheers,

David