[Distutils] Multiple packages in a single distribution

[Alex Clark]

Hi


I am performing a "fun" experiment with Plone in which I plan to 
include a variety of namespace packages in a single distribution. This 
works great with non-namespaced packages. Or rather I should say: if 
you combine a series of name spaced packages into a flat namespace, it 
works. E.g. the Products and plone packages[1]:

- Products/foo
- Products/bar
- plone/foo
- plone/bar

However, this completely falls down (at the distutils level, I guess) 
when you attempt to do the same thing with namespace packages e.g.:

- plone.foo/plone/foo
- plone.bar/plone/bar


In distutils parlance, it looks like this (this works):

    packages=[
        'Products',
        'plone',
    ],
    package_dir={
        'Products': 'Products',
        'plone': 'plone',
        '': 'plone.app.content',
    },
    namespace_packages=[
        'Products',
        'plone',
    ],


What I'd love to be able to do is to continue to add items to package_dir e.g.:

    package_dir={
        'Products': 'Products',
        'plone': 'plone',
        '': 'plone.app.content',
        '': 'plone.app.foo',
        '': 'plone.app.bar',
    },


Because this would allow me to use git submodules. But, I'm guessing, 
since distutils never supported namespace packages (it's a setuptools 
feature, right?) then this will never work as I'd like it to. Aside 
from actually combining all the namespace packages, is there any other 
approach?


Thanks for any thoughts,


Alex



[1] https://github.com/aclark4life/plock



-- 
Alex Clark · https://www.gittip.com/aclark4life/