[Distutils] dependencies, pip and non-PyPI-hosted packages

[Ernesto Posse]

Thanks. I have another question. Now that I'm using distribute, pip
handles the requirements correctly, but if I install with:

python setup.py install

the dependencies are not installed. This is a bit perplexing.

I am trying the scenario where the user has a plain Python
installation with no pip, distribute or setuptools (hence installing
the old fashioned way).

My setup.py looks like this:

# Begin of setup.py

from distribute_setup import use_setuptools
use_setuptools()
from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(..., install_requires=['project1'],...,dependency_links=['http://my.host.org/repository/'],...)

# End of setup.py

and I took care of including distribute_setup.py in MANIFEST.in, so it
is part of the .tar.gz.

When attempting to install, I get this

$ sudo python setup.py install
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/d/distribute/distribute-0.6.15.tar.gz
Extracting in /tmp/tmp4VDb5n
Now working in /tmp/tmp4VDb5n/distribute-0.6.15
Building a Distribute egg in /home/eposse/Downloads/project2-0.1dev
/home/eposse/Downloads/proyecto3-0.1dev/distribute-0.6.15-py2.6.egg
/usr/lib/python2.6/distutils/dist.py:266: UserWarning: Unknown
distribution option: 'install_requires'
  warnings.warn(msg)
...

And the dependencies are ignored.

I don't understand: I explicitly called use_setuptools in my setup,
and as can be seen, distribute is automatically downloaded (albeit
installed in a temporary directory), and imported setup from
setuptools, but it looks like it is calling the plain distutils setup
!?

Why is it not calling the distribute/setuptools setup?

Is there any way around this?

Thanks

PS: since 'requires' and 'provides' are not used in any tool, why are
they in the official documentation?


On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Carl Meyer <carl at oddbird.net> wrote:
> On 04/19/2011 04:07 PM, Ernesto Posse wrote:
>> 1) using distribute and
>>
>>   setup(..., install_requires=['project1'],...,
>> dependency_links=['http://my.host.org/repository/'],...)
>>
>> installs as expected both project1 and project2, but
>>
>>   pip uninstall project2
>>
>> does not uninstall project1. This is quite disappointing, as a user
>> may be unaware of dependencies automatically installed, and thus, the
>> uninstall leaves behind something that was installed with the bundle.
>> I imagine that the idea is that the user may install some other
>> package that depends on 'project1' and pip takes the conservative
>> approach (is that the case?) but I would have expected for pip or
>> distribute or setuptools or distutils to keep some dependency
>> reference counter. Does any of these tools have something like that?
>> or is it going to be addressed in distutils2?
>
> No, there's no current Python packaging tool I know of that keeps a
> dependency reference counter and automatically uninstalls orphaned
> dependencies. The new standard installation format (defined in PEP 376
> and implemented in distutils2) does record whether a package was
> installed by explicit user request or as a dependency; combined with
> checking dependencies of all other installed packages, this will make it
> possible for an uninstaller to implement automatic (or prompted)
> dependency uninstalls.
>
>> 2) if install_requires is missing a dependency (project1), the package
>> gets installed without that dependency, but if I add a dependency and
>> the user attempts an install (project2) with the updated setup.py
>> (listing the new dependency) pip will say that the package (project2)
>> is already installed and won't attempt to install the dependencies. Is
>> this correct? If so, is there a way to tell pip to install project2's
>> dependencies?
>
> With a real package release, the setup.py metadata should never change
> without a version number change. In which case, if you specify the new
> version explicitly or use --upgrade, the previous version will be
> uninstalled and the new one installed in its place, with dependencies.
> (Actually, if you specify --upgrade and you already have the most recent
> version installed, it will still uninstall and reinstall it; but this is
> actually considered a bug.)
>
> Carl
> _______________________________________________
> Distutils-SIG maillist  -  Distutils-SIG at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
>



-- 
Ernesto Posse

Modelling and Analysis in Software Engineering
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada