[Distutils] Anonymous CVS up-and-running

[John Skaller]

At 18:54 18/12/98 -0500, Greg Ward wrote:
>Hi all --
>
>undoubtedly it's wildly premature to have source available before we
>have any sort of high-level design, but what the hell.  

        Absolutely NOT! Gee, haven't you learned some OO? <g>
OO is a bottom up. You do detail work BEFORE you have a high
level design. What you have done is absolutely right. Thanks!!

>Only things there so far are my version number module and Fred's
>sysconfig module.

---------------------------------------------
        Please put my compilers module in it too.
It provides the high level abstract interface that is actually needed.
At least, it tries to. It needs work! It needs a third component
for Java as well.

---------------------------------------------
I have incorporated the sysconfig module into interscript.
Here are my comments on the sysconfig module.

1) C++ is not supported. If the option is not provided to build
py++, a separate distribution may follow. Do we want that?

[py++ is the same as python, except that the main translation
unit is built with C++: the C built library is still used]

We need the Makefile to support C++ so sysconfig can get
C++ compilation flags.

2) Some of the data, such as CFLAGS, is useless because it reflects
the python source build tree. On my system 

        CFLAGS = '-g -O2 -I./../Include -I.. -DHAVE_CONFIG_H'

3) The directory for config.h is WRONG!
config.h lives in

        /usr/local/include/python1.5

but the sysconfig module looks in

        /usr/local/lib/python1.5

CHANGE the line which gets this wrong TO:

        config_dir = os.join(
                sys.exec_prefix, 'include','python'+version)

4) On my system:

        SIZEOF_INT = '4'

which is wrong, it should be

        SIZEOF_INT = 4

I got this using 'repr(value)'.
Most other numeric values are OK.

5) I think the module should NOT just put values
into itself like

        FLAG = VALUE

I suggest:

        C_CAPABILITIES -- dictionary or module containing stuff from config.h
        MAKE_FLAGS -- dictionary or module containing Makefile variables

be attributes of sysconfig. If you do not like writing

        sysconfig.C_CAPABILITIES['HAVE_STDDEF_H']

then go for the module, which allows:

        sysconfig.C_CAPABILITIES.HAVE_STDDEF_H

6) There is no information from Setup. It would be useful to
get the Tcl/Tk library and headers into the configuration
if it was built. Hmmm. :(

7) _init_posix should NOT modify a dictionary, but return one:
CHANGE:

        g = globals()

to

        g = {}

and add

        return g

to the end of the routine. Replace the exec line with

        g = eval('_init_%s()' % os.name)

and add

        for k in g: globals()[k] = g[k]

if you really want to modify the module dictionary.
I don't. I use the data to generate the python
source of another module. This is important to me:
the generated python can be transmitted over the Internet.
It can be edited. And I can have several distinct
configurations.

What I do is that the build code is NOT in sysconfig,
but inline interscript (python) code which is executed to BUILD
a file 'sysconfig.py'.

8) LINKCC = ' gcc' has a bad leading space.

9) I have no idea how to use the available information.
There are flags all over the place.
-------------------------------------------------------
John Skaller    email: skaller@maxtal.com.au
		http://www.maxtal.com.au/~skaller
		phone: 61-2-96600850
		snail: 10/1 Toxteth Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia