[Distutils] deprecating pip install --target

[Daniel Holth]

My setup-requires wrapper, adding pre-setup.py dependency installation to
setup.py, relies on this feature. It needs to install something in a
directory that is only added to PYTHONPATH during the installation and does
not interfere with the normal environment.

On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 9:55 AM Steve Dower <python at stevedower.id.au> wrote:

> 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
> ------------------------------
> From: Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk>
> Sent: ‎2/‎11/‎2016 15:18
> To: 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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