[Distutils] distlib and data files => resources ?

[Tarek Ziadé]

On 11/18/12 11:15 PM, Chris McDonough wrote:
> On 11/18/2012 05:08 PM, Vinay Sajip wrote:
>> Tarek Ziadé <tarek <at> ziade.org> writes:
>>
>>> Having a indirection like distutils2's resources allows the data files
>>> to live alongside the code
>>> in development and to be installed wherever that's desired by the
>>> distro, without breaking
>>> the code as long as it uses the indirection function to find back 
>>> the file.
>>>
>>> Since the indirection is provided by a file that can be browsed in the
>>> metadata directory,
>>> it means anyone can get the file location by using the API we provided.
>>
>> Yes, but it seems like you're assuming everything's always installed 
>> in a
>> conventional way and not, say, deployed in a .zip. I'm not disputing 
>> what you
>> said - get_file_path and get_resource_path are still there in distlib 
>> - but I'm
>> not sure that there's *never* a case for data located in packages.
>
> Requiring that developers build an 
> alternate-structure-of-files-that-arent-Python-files-just-because-they-aren't-Python-files 
> outside the package structure seems like a terrible idea.

I think you did not get it.

If you look/read carefully, it's not an alternate structure. The files 
are not moved - they are staying at the same place alongside the Python 
files in your source tree.

The difference is only at installation time: they may be installed 
somewhere else.  And when you access them - there's an API to read them 
instead of using __file__.

Tarek

>
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