[Distutils] The PEP 426 defined metadata version will be metadata 3.0

[Vinay Sajip]

> It makes perfect sense to version the dist-info directory.
> You don’t know how to interpret the files inside that directory without it.
> You have to rely on heuristics and guessing.



Not if you specify up front how it will work, which is doable.


It's not clear to me if you mean putting the metadata version in the directory name itself - if so, that's a -1 from me. It doesn't actually make things better as far as the PEP 376 database logic goes, given that a site-packages could have any number of dist-info dirs which could have been installed with different metadata versions.

If you mean putting some marker inside the directory, then pydist.json is as good a place as any, because as packaging evolves, the chances are that pydist.json will need to contain metadata version information telling how to process it, and there's little point in providing the information in two places. All of the legacy stuff is in separate files purely for speed of processing or through historical accident, but those are implementation details which should be under the hood as far as possible.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip
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