[Python-Dev] pkgutil, pkg_resource and Python 3.0 name space packages (original) (raw)

Christian Heimes lists at cheimes.de
Tue Jan 8 03:29:49 CET 2008

Paul Moore wrote:

What would be used on Windows? It's likely to be of marginal use on Windows, but an appropriate equivalent should be defined. Possibly just replace ~ with %USERPROFILE%. I'd argue against anything under %APPDATA% as that directory is hidden.

No, we shouldn't mess with the profile root directory on Windows. The data should either be installed under "Application Data" or under "My Documents". You are right, the appdata directory is hidden by the installer could add a link to Application Data\Python\python2.x\ to the start menu.

I also don't like the idea to replace ~ with another string. Every OS is probably using a different path (~/.python/ on Linux, ~/Library/Python on Mac and APPDATA\Python on Windows). The distutils package should gain two methods: global_sitedir() and local_sitedir([username]).

Also, should bdistwininst/bdistmsi installers be updated to offer the option of installing to this directory? What about python setup.py install (add a --user flag, for example)?

Sounds good to me.

Apropos My Documents and other special directories on Windows. Python doesn't have an API to get the directories from the registry. Is somebody interested in having a module for the task? I've some code for the job on disk.

Christian

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