[Distutils] install --dry-run broken?

[David Cournapeau]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Floris Bruynooghe
<floris.bruynooghe at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I would think it's intended for paranoid people who want to see what
> exactly what files will be copied where before doing a real install.
> And I must admit that I like that functionality at times.

The feature is very useful indeed, but the current implementation is
useless in distutils. Maybe it would be better to use something like
the FileList instance which is kept in the corresponding commands, and
parse this one.

> That said it's been broken since forever[0] and it's a real pain to
> implement it properly and a high maintenance cost to keep it
> functioning properly.

It is a pain in distutils, but that's easy to do it if you design the
install process correctly.

David