pip grabs tar.gz file instead of whl?

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 7:00 AM, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> The same file installed perfectly when downloaded and installed in two
> steps.  Whether this is simply a known bug with zipfile handling, pip
> itself, a combination of both or what I've no idea.
>
> I find it slightly irritating that a tool recommended by the Python
> Packaging Authority behaves in such a way, but then I didn't have to dip
> into my pocket to pay for it and certainly won't lose any sleep over it as
> there's such a simple work around.

The way I see it, pip is great for handling the most common case where
you just want to name a package and say "go fetch", but if you want to
override its decisions, you should use the lower-level facilities eg
manual downloading and setup.py. It's like with Debian packages: I can
type "sudo apt-get install blah" and it'll run off and grab it, check
its signatures, make sure everything's right, and then install it; but
if I want to install something from a different location, the best way
is usually to download it manually, do my own checking, and then "sudo
dpkg -i blah.deb" to actually install it - no apt-get involvement at
all. This shouldn't normally be a problem; you don't *have* to use pip
here, you just want to end up with the package properly installed.

ChrisA