[Catalog-sig] PEP 314: Updating the package metadata format

[Thomas Heller]

Your recent comment on c.l.p reminded me that there was something I
would like to comment on.

In your diary entry
http://www.amk.ca/diary/2003/03/28.html#2003-03-28-4
you say Windows doesn't have a package system/package database.

I've shown in my pypan prototype that the uninstall information that
bdist_wininst writes contains enough information for a lot of things:
- you can remove the installed files
- you can list installed packages
- you may even be able to retrieve a version number of installed
packages

I don't remember if there is more.

Of course, this info is only present for packages installed from
bdist_wininst, but it would be trivial to extend distutils to either
create a bdist_wininst installer for the "setup.py install" command and
run it, or extend the install command to write this info.

Thomas