[Distutils] sdist default archive format

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn]

On Jun 19, 2009, at 13:54 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

>> It isn't so easy for setuptools to know which things ought to have  
>> +x and which things ought not just based on their pathnames or  
>> other metadata.
>
> Unless you specify explicitly it in a metadata file.

My argument is that using a metadata-preserving archive format allows  
a programmer to control that stuff and also allows setuptools (or  
distutils, I guess) to ignore that stuff.  Inventing a way to pass  
that information through the metadata requires the programmer to  
learn and use an extra configuration on top of what they already do,  
and requires setuptools (distutils) to pay attention to that stuff.

>> Having an archive format that preserves such bits would probably  
>> be a good way to solve all such problems -- by making it the  
>> packagers problems to set the bits before packaging rather than  
>> setuptools's problem to figure out which bits ought to be set  
>> after installation.
>
> How would you create such an archive on Windows? (A serious  
> question, not trying to be argumentative.)


You mean a bdist?  You can't "cross-compile" and build a bdist for  
Linux on Windows (can you?), or vice versa.  I think we're only  
talking about "non-cross-compiled" bdists here.

A metadata-preserving archive format wouldn't make this harder, and  
it might make it easier.

Regards,

Zooko