[Python-Dev] PEP 250 - site-packages on Windows: (Was: [Distutils] Package DB: strawman PEP)

[M.-A. Lemburg]

"Moore, Paul" wrote:
> 
> From: M.-A. Lemburg [mailto:mal@lemburg.com]
> > I don't have a site-packages dir in my installations. Could it be that
> > you installed some distutils package which automagically created one
> > or that this change in Python 2.1.1 ?
> 
> I don't believe so. I have ActiveState Python - it's possible (although
> unlikely, I would think) that that version creates site-packages specially.
> It's vaguely possible (although unlikely) that I created the directory
> manually - it was missing in one of the 2.1 betas, IIRC, but I thought it
> reappeared in 2.1 final. In any case, the necessary changes to make sure
> that directory exists should be in the Windows Installer package(s) for
> Python. I guess that means somewhere in the Wise installer scripts - which I
> don't have access to, nor would I know how to change.

They should be in the CVS tree of Python on SourceForge.
 
> It should just be a case of reinstating the behaviour in 2.0, if the
> directory really has been lost in 2.1.
> 
> > This doesn't seem to do the trick: the Windows installer still installs
> > the packages directly to \Python21.
> 
> This change should (as I said, it's untested) have ensured that "python
> setup.py install" puts the module into site-packages. 

About the change: I think distutils should lookup the path in Python's
site.py file - that way you assure that distutils will work on all
Python installations rather than only on those which have the site.py
patch. Otherwise, Python won't find the packages installed in 
Lib/site-packages.

> I don't know what the
> installer code in bdist_wininst.py does, as it's a base64-encoded EXE, and I
> don't have the sources - surely it uses the distutils sysconfig stuff to get
> the value (it has no other way of knowing...)?

The sources for the Windows installer are on SourceForge CVS too (under the
distutils branch). I believe that Thomas Heller who wrote the installer
will know best what to do about this...

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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