[Python-Dev] distutils and bdist_wininst confusion: clarification

[Thomas Heller]

There has been some confusion about distutils, especially the
bdist_wininst command.
I hope I can clarify these things with this post.

1. The current Distutils version 1.0, which is also
   included in the Python 2.0 release candidate is perfectly
   usable apart from one bug:
   You should create windows installers (by running
   'setup.py bdist_wininst' or 'setup.py bdist --formats=wininst')
   ONLY with an external zip utility (info-zip would do).
   Using the zipfile module results in corrupted installations
   (all files are created with zero length).
   Details about the cause for this can be found in the patch
   I posted to SF.


2. I submitted a patch to SF
   http://sourceforge.net/patch/?func=detailpatch&patch_id=101844&group_id=5470
   which corrects this bug.
   Normally I would have checked this code in immediately,
   because it is in _my_ code, and that's what my checkin rights
   are for ;-).
   I did not because I did not want to interfere with the release process of
   python 2.0 rc 1.


3. How does bdist_wininst work?
   bdist_wininst creates a self-extracting zipfile from two
   components: a stub program (wininst.exe) plus a zip-file
   containing the code to be distributed. Because I did not
   liked wininst.exe as binary file checked in into CVS,
   the actual bytes of this exe are included base64-encoded
   in the bdist_wininst.py module as string. I'm not sure
   whether this is a wise design or not, but that is a different
   topic.
   The downside of this design is that when the source to 
   wininst.exe changes, it must be recompiled, and bdist_wininst.py
   must be regenerated. The context-diffs for bdist_wininst.py
   are so very large.


4. To understand the patch, you should know the following:
   Distutils is a separate toplevel module in the repository
   on sourceforge. Parts of this repository are symbolically
   linked somewhere into the python tree. Thus, this patch must
   be applied to the distutils _module_ in the repository.

   Distutils directory structure is as follows:

   distutils
     dd
     distutils
       command
     doc
       dist
       inst
     examples
       sample1
       sample2
       sample3
     misc
     test
     text

   Relevant part of python directory structure:

   python
     dist
       src
         Lib
           distutils
             command

   The source code for wininst.exe is in CVS in the distutils/misc
   directory.
   The patch I posted to SF does not include the compiled
   wininst.exe, neither does it include the (regenerated)
   bdist_wininst.py module.

5. If nobody objects, I will check in the changes I made tomorrow, recompile
   the exe, regenerate the bdist_wininst.py, and everything should be
   fine again.
   Greg will then hopefully, when he is back, increase the distutils version
   number to 1.0.1 (or whatever) and this version will then be delivered with
   python 2.0 final.

Sorry for the confusion.

Cheers,

Thomas