[Distutils] PEP 376 -- support for release versions?

[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Sridhar Ratnakumar
<sridharr at activestate.com> wrote:
> Because python-ldap may release a similar version in future. We don't have
> to cause collisions. This is why the release version is not part of package
> version in the *.pypm filename.

Ok

>
> I actually now think that storing the release number inside the .egg-info/
> directory may be a better idea. Like:
>
> $ cat python_ldap-2.3.10.egg-info/pypm.txt
> release: 2
> $
>
> What do you think?

In that case, an arbitrary file that gets installed in the .egg-info/
directory, that you can read back when needed through the PEP 376
pkgutil new API, seem to be a good idea.

This implies that Python+distutils itself will not be able to
distinguish two different releases that have the same version, but a
different build version.

e.g. that just Active State's package manager is able to manage this
extra number.

The other option, if this extra binary version number is a generic
need, would be to add a new metadata field in PEP 345. (like in RPMs
IIRC) and build an egg info folder name that contains this extra info
when present.

Regards
Tarek