[Distutils] recommended strategy for missing development tools

[Robin Becker]

On 24/01/2017 11:13, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:09 AM, Robin Becker <robin at reportlab.com> wrote:
>> A reportlab user says his pip install fails to create an importable C
>> extension. He said
>>
>> "The platform is Mac OS X 10.11.6, aka "El Capitan". Pip didn't complain"
>>
>> which is probably true since the extension is not required for reportlab's
>> main usage.
>>
>> I tried to reproduce on OS X 10.10.5, but my machine has xcode installed and
>> the extension was correctly produced.
>>
>> I don't have any code in setup.py to prevent compilation; is there a way to
>> alert users to the non-build of the extension(s).
>
> I'm having some trouble figuring out exactly what you're asking... is
> the question: "if my setup.py encounters a non-fatal error while being
> run by pip, how can I print a message for the user to see while still
> letting the build continue?"?
>
> -n
>
Sorry to be so vague, but I am not the person who ran pip install so I'm not 
exactly sure what happened. The setup.py in question complains if the extension 
files cannot be found, but does not error. If the files can be found and I 
assume they can because they're now part of the same repository then the 
extensions are set up and added to the final setup call. Since pip did not 
complain I assume either the setup.py failed to find the extension source or the 
compile failed silently somehow.

Unfortunately I don't have a test system where I can turn off xcode to see what 
happens. I'm wondering if setup fails silently somehow.
-- 
Robin Becker