[Distutils] Are egg files needed when building/installing via --root?

[David Cournapeau]

Josselin Mouette wrote:
> There are existing tools like pkg-config, which are not restricted to
> Python, and that already do things correctly.
>   

pkg-config can't seriously be considered as a solution for python:
     - it is not cross platform: it does not work on windows for once
(by working, I mean not only running but being usable to check for
platform specific frameworks/libraries).
    - Assuming it did work, there would be the problem that when you
install python, you don't necessarily have pkg-config.

That being said, I agree that something like pkg-config, adapted to
python needs, is much better than the current python scheme.

cheers,

David