[Distutils] DRAFT PEP 396 - module version number

[Fred Drake]

I wrote:
> If you're referring to a package like zope.testing, I'd just call that a
> package; there's nothing special about that.  I'd expect the __version__,
> if it exists, to be present in the file zope/testing/__init__.py.

Ben Finney responded
> Yes, but how to specify that? The ‘__init__.py’ file is a module. What's
> that, then; a package module?

The package zope.testing includes the module zope.testing (implemented in
zope/testing/__init__.py), as well as other modules (zope.testing.cleanup
for example).  The zope.testing module SHOULD contain any appropriate
__version__
attribute.

The only real special cases are "namespace" packages like zc, zope, and many
others.  Since those are *not* tied to a single distribution, they SHOULD NOT
have __version__ attributes.

(I think we agree on this, but language is tedious, since there are many casual
uses of the term 'package' here, and 'namespace packages' aren't as commonly
known outside particular segments of the community.)


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.    <fdrake at acm.org>
"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."
   --Frank Lloyd Wright