[Distutils] Python people want CPAN and how the latter came about

[Tarek Ziadé]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 5:12 AM, David Cournapeau <cournape at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 10:35 PM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> When you say "which could be solved relatively easily" I suggest that
>> you take the time to add concise and precise proposals in
>> bugs.python.org so I can work on them.
>
> Technically, it is easy. Only have two mechanisms for data files: one
> for installed data files, and one for extra source files (as done in
> automake for example):
>  -  Extra files only need to be listed (and included in sdist)
>  -  Install data files need a target directory. One of the problem
> with distutils here is that you can only hardcode paths - in my own
> packaging solution, I use $path variables so that any path defined
> internally can be reused ($bindir, etc...); something similar could be
> defined in distutils.

distutils uses install schemes with variables too ($base, etc), that
are expanded at installation time. and differs depending on the
options you pass to the install command.
(look at the command/install module)

There's only one target directory for all files describe in data_file
though, but we
could work on extending this if you make a feature request in the bug tracker,