[Distutils] deprecating pip install --target

[Steve Dower]

I was also planning to use it in an upcoming project that has to "do its own" package management. The aim was to install different versions of packages in different directories and use sys.path modifications to resolve them at runtime (kind of like what setuptools did in the older days).

An alternative would be great, though I can probably fake things somehow for my purposes.

Cheers,
Steve

Top-posted from my Windows Phone

-----Original Message-----
From: "Vinay Sajip" <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk>
Sent: ‎2/‎11/‎2016 15:18
To: "Distutils-Sig at Python.Org" <Distutils-Sig at Python.Org>
Subject: Re: [Distutils] deprecating pip install --target

Robert Collins <robertc <at> robertcollins.net> writes:

> 
> This is fairly broken - it doesn't handle platlib vs purelib (see pip
> PR 3450), doesn't handle data files, or any other layout. Donald says
> pip uses it to maintain the _vendor subtrees only, which doesn't seem
> like a particularly strong use case.
> 
> Certainly the help description for it is misleading - since what we're
> actually doing is copying only a subset of what the package installed
> - so at a minimum we need to be much clearer about what it does.
> 
> But, I think it would be better to deprecate it and remove it... so
> I'm pinging here to see if anyone can explain a sensible use case for
> it in the context of pip :)

I use it in pretty much the same way as Paul mentioned - I wouldn't like it 
to go unless something equivalent is available. Updating the help / 
documentation for it to better reflect what it does would be uncontroversial 
for me, but I see no strong reason for deprecation and removal. As Paul 
suggests, it can get stricter about what it'll handle.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip

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