[Numpy-discussion] include file location and .eggs

[konrad.hinsen at laposte.net]

On Jan 23, 2006, at 18:07, Andrew Straw wrote:

> Let's say you wanted to have Scientific 2.4.2 depend on Numeric 23.5.
> You'd make sure the call to setup() (which is now imported from
> setuptools, not distutils.core) included the following:

...

OK, that looks sophisticated enough to me :-)

Since setuptools keeps track of dependencies, it should be able to  
provide on demand a list of all include file directories for all  
packages on which the current build procedure depends, directly or  
indirectly. To stay within my example, a package that depends on  
ScientificPython, which in turn depends on Numeric, should be able to  
get, with a single call, the include directories for *both*  
ScientificPython and Numeric.

Assuming such a mechanism exists, and is also implemented in plain  
distutils (returning just the standard installation paths), then  
personally I wouldn't care where header files are, because there is a  
straightforward way to obtain that information.

However, that is not what is currently being discussed for numpy,  
unless I missed something. What is being discussed is an arrangement  
that requires the setup.py of every package to reconstruct the  
dependency tree and figure out where each package in the dependency  
tree keeps its header files.


There is something else that I don't understand. If egg installation  
uses setup from setuptools instead of distutils, it should be trivial  
for the setup function from setuptools to implement install_headers  
in a way that suits its need. So why request that numpy (and other  
packages) adapt to setuptools, creating compatibility issues with  
standard distutils, rather than modify setuptools and have it work  
automatically for all packages?

Konrad.
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