[Distutils] Python module for use in ‘setup.py’ but not to install

[Ben Finney]

Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> writes:

> I actually misunderstood your question. If you're just after the
> ability to say "I want to include this file in the sdist, but not in
> the built wheel file or installed distribution" (as I now believe you
> are)

Correct, that's the goal here.

> then you're in the implementation defined world of the significantly
> underspecified sdist format. I believe setting that up actually *is*
> possible already, but have no idea what incantation you'll need to
> pass to setuptools to make it do it (and the docs are unlikely to be a
> reliable guide).

My understanding, based on an answer received elsewhere [0], is that
omitting the file from ‘setup.py’ but adding it to ‘MANIFEST.in’ causes
it to be included in the sdist but omitted from install targets.

[0] <URL:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27930124/python-module-use-during-setup-but-not-to-be-installed/27931088#27931088>

That has worked for me. But it appears to cause problems for some
others, related to this module which should not be installed.

Unfortunately this kind of problem (trouble post-install from a PyPI
package) is difficult to test. How can I test the behaviour of ‘pip’ in
this regard, without thrashing many releases of a package upload to
PyPI?

-- 
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Ben Finney