[Python-Dev] [Catalog-sig] egg_info in PyPI (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Sat Sep 18 16:01:32 CEST 2010

Ok, I'm sorry - PEP 345 information is available via the PyPI API. (So exposing egg_info would not be promoting it over distutils2 but it would still be promoting and blessing it).

Tarek's main point still stands though. The dependency information in the egg_info is tied to the platform and Python version that the package was built on. Neither pip nor easy_install use the egg_info to determine this; instead they re-generate it to get the correct information for the target platform.

So if the use case is to provide dependency information exposing egg_info is not the right way to do it - and tools that use it will be using potentially (and frequently) inaccurate information. I stand by the point that once we start providing this information tools will start using it, and they shouldn't be. (So your question "when can tools computing dependencies for widely used packages actually expect that these metadata will be available?" is not answered by providing access to egg_info.)

This problem (static availability of dependency information) is exactly the problem PEP 345 solves, so we should be pushing for progress on this front (distutils2a1 is already out and distutils2a2 will be out soon).

All the best,

Michael Foord

On 18/09/2010 14:21, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

No. See above comment. If exposing this information has no value then don't do it. If it does have value, then we are blessing it - and therefore blessing it over other formats. No: not over. Only over formats that don't get exposed. However, the PEP 345 data are already exposed, via HTML, JSON, XML-RPC. So they are much more prominently presented than what I'm proposing to do. I fail to see why just extracting the egg-info would be exposing it over the PEP 345 data.

The tool in question is tl.eggdepend. It can easily support both kinds of metadata.

I couldn't find any references "tl.eggdepend" on the web. It is a minor point though. Oops, see http://pypi.python.org/pypi/tl.eggdeps As in exported by PyPI though an API / interface? Sure. See, for example, http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep345demo/json It's also available through the XML-RPC releasedata. Saying that they could is more empty words if our actions promote the use of another format. But they do. Please stop saying that they might not, when they actually do (and have been for a while). It's just that no package is using it (except for pep345demo).

As for a bit: how long exactly? Distutils2 1a2 will be released in the next few days. Sure. But when can tools computing dependencies for widely used packages actually expect that these metadata will be available? Promoting another format in preference to distutils2 will very much prolong that. IT WILL BE NOT IN PREFERENCE TO DISTUTILS2. Regards, Martin

-- http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/

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