[Distutils] an uninstall option patch

[Michael Muller]

Obviously, I'm biased on this issue ;-).  However, these approaches are
equivalent in that they both track the set of installed files: an "uninstall"
script just wraps a function around this set.  Meta-info is more general: you
can use it to uninstall, you can also use it to find out which package a
particular file belongs to, or to verify a file's checksum if you believe that
it may have been corrupted.  

The two approaches are not incompatible: why not provide both?

Greg Ward wrote:
> Hmmm, good idea.  I've idly mused about how to uninstall module
> distributions, and this option hadn't occurred to me.  So now I can see
> *two* good ways to do uninstallation:
> 
>   * keep track of the files installed (eg. using Michael Muller's
>     "pkginfo" patch), and have a universal uninstall script that
>     digs up the list of files for a particular distribution
> 
>   * generate a custom uninstall script for each installed
>     module distribution
> 

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michaelMuller = mmuller@enduden.com | http://www.cloud9.net/~proteus
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Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
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