[Distutils] [Python Language Summit] Distutils / Packaging survey

Ben Finney ben+python at benfinney.id.au
Sat Jan 31 00:09:28 CET 2009


"P.J. Eby" <pje at telecommunity.com> writes:

> At 06:39 PM 1/30/2009 +0000, Floris Bruynooghe wrote:
> >I imagine things like libdir, prefix, datadir, docdir and other
> >things copied from autoconf. Where the defaults would be something
> >like:
> >
> >prefix = sys.prefix
> >libdir = sys.prefix/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/pkgname
> >datadir = sys.prefix/share/mypackage
> >docdir = sys.prefix/share/doc/mypackage
> 
> I'm confused by the above lines: do you mean the *project* name, or
> the name of some package within the project? What if the project
> contains no packages, only modules? What is libdir for?

To clarify: Here again we come up against the unfortunate choice of
the term “package” in Python to mean something confisingly different
from what it means to most people dealing with software.

I imagine Floris meant what most hackers mean by “package”, which is
what Python perversely calls a “distribution”. That may or may not
be what setuptools calls a “project”, I've never been clear on that
:-/

-- 
 \                             “Everything is futile.” —Marvin of Borg |
  `\                                                                   |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney



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