[Distutils] PEP 426 (Metadata 2.0) - Requires-Dist and setuptools/distribute

[Paul Moore]

On 4 March 2013 20:00, Daniel Holth <dholth at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In thinking about how virtualenv would describe the packages it wants
>> to preload in PEP 426 metadata form, it occurred to me that there are
>> scenarios with setuptools and distribute where it's not obvious how to
>> state the requirement you want. Specifically, if you want to install
>> setuptools if it is present, but if not fall back to distribute (for
>> example, if you have a local package repository and no access to PyPI,
>> but setuptools may or may not be present).
[...]
>
> We do have Provides-Dist, although the best way to implement it is an
> open question.

Good point. So distribute would have "Provides-Dist: setuptools" and I
could just require setuptools. Given that none of this is supported
yet, I'm happy that the spec covers this case, but still need to work
around it for the immediate future.

Thanks,
Paul