[Python-Dev] Packaging and binary distributions (original) (raw)

Vinay Sajip vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Oct 31 09:07:12 CET 2011

Paul Moore <p.f.moore gmail.com> writes:

Hang on. I'm talking here about repackaging the binary files in the MSI file for use in a pysetup install invocation. As pysetup has no GUI, and doesn't integrate with Add/Remove, there's no issue here. If you want a GUI and Add/Remove integration, just run the MSI. Or am I missing something? We seem to be at cross purposes here, I suspect I'm missing your point.

As you say later in your post, we're probably just coming at this from two different perspectives. I think you mentioned the possible need to install to a temporary location just to extract files from the CAB; then you would presumably need to uninstall again to remove the Add/Remove Programs entry created when you installed to the temporary location (or else I misunderstood your meaning here).

It would be important to retain the flexibility offered by setup.cfg hooks, as I don't believe any out-of-the-box approach will work for the range of use cases on Windows (think Powershell scripts, Visio templates and other Microsoft Office integration components). Why? Again, if this is purely as a means to consume bdistxxx files, then the only flexibility needed is enough to cater for any variations in data stored in the bdistxxx format. The wininst format is easy here - it has directories PLATLIB, PURELIB, DATA, SCRIPTS and HEADERS (corresponding to the installation --install-xxx parameters) and that's all. As long as the module is flexible enough to deal with that, it can read anything bdistwininst can produce.

My point is really that a one-size-fits-all DATA location is unlikely to cater to all use cases. The flexibility offered by setup.cfg together with hooks gets around the limitation of a single location for data.

Ah, I think I see what you are getting at. If someone uses the new features and flexibility of packaging to create a fancy custom install scheme, how do they bundle up a binary distribution from that? My (current) answer is that I don't know. The packaging module as it stands only offers the legacy bdistxxx formats, so the answer is "run pysetup run bdistwininst on it". If that breaks (as it is likely to - wininst format isn't very flexible) then tough, you're out of luck.

Yes, that's what I was getting at.

Regards,

Vinay Sajip

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