[Python-Dev] addressing distutils inability to track file dependencies

[Guido van Rossum]

> I tend to use an incremental approach, with lots of edit-compile-run
> cycles.  I still haven't found a way to get the damn thing to just build
> my extension and copy it to the current directory, so I can run the
> test scripts.

Funny, I use an edit-compile-run cycle too, but I don't have the need
to copy anything to the current directory.

> does anyone here know how to do that, without having to resort to
> ugly wrapper batch files/shell scripts?
> 
> (distutils is also a pain to use with a version management system
> that marks files in the repository as read-only; distutils copy function
> happily copies all the status bits. but the remove function refuses to
> remove files that are read-only, even if the files have been created
> by distutils itself...)

This smells like a bug.  Maybe it can be fixed rather than used as a
stick to hit the dog.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)