[Python-Dev] Internal documentation for egg formats now available

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 04:41 PM 4/25/2006 -0700, Brent Fulgham wrote:
>"Included are summary descriptions of the formats of all of the standard
>metadata produced by setuptools, along with pointers to the existing
>manuals that describe the syntax used for representing requirements, entry
>points, etc. as text.  The .egg, .egg-info, and .egg-link formats and
>layouts are also specified...."
>
>I also follow the chicken Scheme mailing list, and initially though this was
>a mistaken reference to http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/eggs/.
>
>Is there any concern that the use of 'egg' might cause some confusion?

Not for the software, anyway.  As long as nobody asks EasyInstall to 
install something from that page, and as long as they're not in the habit 
of installing Scheme extensions to their Python directories, everything 
will be fine.  :)

Just for the heck of it, I tried asking easy_install to install some of the 
stuff on that page, and it griped about most of the eggs listed on that 
page not having version numbers, and then it barfed with a ZipImportError 
after downloading the .egg and observing that it was not a valid zip 
file.  (It hadn't actually installed the egg file yet, so no changes were 
made to the Python installation.)

So, also just for the heck of it, I'm tempted to add some code to 
easy_install to notice when it encounters a tarball .egg (which is what the 
Scheme/Chicken eggs are), and maybe have it explain that Scheme eggs aren't 
Python eggs, perhaps in humorous fashion.  If I did add such code, you 
might even call it an "easter egg", I suppose...  ;)