[Distutils] Get install prefix for module at runtime

[Tarek Ziadé]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Tarek Ziadé <ziade.tarek at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Wolodja Wentland
> <wentland at cl.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
>> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 17:38 +0200, Wolodja Wentland wrote:
>>> My question is: "How to reliably access data files from a module in
>>> foo?"
>>
>>> Approach 2 - writing a build.py file at installation time
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> The last question made me think, that Approach 1 works for the three
>>> standard installation schemes, but fails miserably if the user decides
>>> to do anything fancy.
>>
>> I implemented this approach like this:
>
> Sorry for the late reply,
>
>>
>> Is this a good approach? Is there anything i can do better?
>
> The idea of providing your own install command seems good, except that I find
> writing all informations in a .py overkill.
>
> In the same way the option --record works, you can memorize
> all installation locations into a simple ConfigParser-like file you
> add to the files that
> are installed in Python in your package.
>
> Your code can then read the .cfg file it at execution time using
> __file__ to get your
> paths.
>
> Although with this approach you have to be careful if your package is
> distributed in some environments (py2exe, setuptools eggs) where you might be
> located in a zipped file.

On a second thaught,  if the file already exists in you package with
default values
it's simpler :

you might be able to alter it on-the-fly by overriding  the build_py command
instead of the install command

and AFAIR, you won't be bothered by setuptools' monkey patches.