[Distutils] The problem with Setuptools on Python 3.

[Lennart Regebro]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 15:03, P.J. Eby <pje at telecommunity.com> wrote:
>  python2 setup.py 2to3 test

Well, yes, but it should be

   python 3 setup.py 2to3 test

Otherwise it can't reasonably have any idea of which python to use.
And when you run it with python3, the 2to3 command isn't needed, as
the 2to3 step can be automatically inserted through version detection.
In fact, this is exactly what I'm doing for zope.interface, as
explained. For zope.interface, you run
   python2.5 setup.py test
and it will test it with python2.5 You run
   python3.0 setup.py test
and it will do exactly what you say: copy the files to build, run
2to3, and then run the test on that in-place.
   python3.0 setup.py install
will copy the files to build, run 2to3 and then install it.

> Anyway, I know this is a fair amount of work; It just seems to me that it
> has more uses than converting setuptools; i.e., it'd be a useful rig for
> anybody doing 2-to-3 porting work.

Yes. That's is exactly what I'm trying to achieve. And I aim to extend
setuptools with build_2to3 and test_2to3 commands to do exactly that.
But to do that I need a good setuptools distribution that supports
Python3. And to do that, I need to make setuptools support Python 3 in
a way that is acceptable to somebody who can merge it to trunk and
make an official release. As far as I know that's you. If I can't find
a solution that is both acceptable to you, and makes Python 3 support
relatively painless, then my efforts have been in vain.

Your comment about setuptools using itself as a good test case did
make me think that this is the case. It explains why the test cases
could run even though setuptools still couldn't install itself. I
thought it was badly tested, now I know it's by design. Removing the
self-dependency then means we have to write a whole bunch of new test
cases.

I do not have the energy to do this. As mentioned I have already put
down a lot of effort into this, and I'm expac...experc... desperate
and have given up. Even writing this email makes me all physically
tired, besides taking a lot of time I should use to make money. I'm
getting too old for this. Somebody else can do it.

Over and out.

-- 
Lennart Regebro: Python, Zope, Plone, Grok
http://regebro.wordpress.com/
+33 661 58 14 64