[Distutils] easy_install feature request

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 07:04 PM 2/16/2007 +0100, Thomas Heller wrote:
>The more I manage the third-party packages I have installed with easy_install,
>the more I like that I never have to fiddle around in the file 
>system.  (Except
>when I want to free the space that a no-longer needed package consumes,
>"easy_install -m <package-name>" works fine).
>
>However (since I'm playing around with support for eggs in py2exe), it is not
>possible to reinstall an already installed (by it multi-version or not) 
>package
>in zipped or unzipped form by using easy_install.  I always have to delete 
>the package
>in the file-system and then call 'easy_install -z|-Z package'.

Patches welcome.  :)  Have a look at the 'install_egg' method of the 
easy_install class in setuptools.command.easy_install, which currently 
checks to see if the source and destination files are the same, in which 
case it does nothing.  You would need to have it confirm that it actually 
wants to change something, and then rename the old file or something.  It'd 
also need to actually have some code to zip up the original directory, 
since there is currently only code there to unpack.