[Distutils] project description files?

[Greg Ward]

On 05 February 2000, Greg Stein said:
> Ack! I thought we threw out the "new little language" a while back.
> 
> But if you insist, maybe there is a way to break down the structure into
> something that fits nicely with ConfigParser? For example:

For some reason, it keeps coming back to haunt me.  I am not a big fan
of little declarative languages, but sometimes they can be useful.
Eg. for the limited range of tasks to which make is well-suited, I would
much rather write a makefile than a Python script.  The problem is that
most such little languages give you no good way to break out; make at
least gives you *a* way (shell commands), but no one would call that a
*good* way.  (GNU make gives you a few more ways [various forms of
access to the external environment when defining variables], but again
that'll only go so far until you hit the usual brick wall endemic to
special-purpose languages.)

I find Anthony Pfrunder's Zmake intriguing -- the idea is basically
makefiles with Python code instead of shell commands.  I just don't know
the right way to integrate it, or any other little declarative language
for that matter, into the Distutils' way of doing things.  I'll continue
to toy with the idea, and I'm certainly open to entertaining others'
ideas.

> [global]
> target = ooky
> 
> [ext1]
> flag1 = foo
> modules = bar, baz
> 
> [ext2]
> flag3 = bogle
> ...
> 
> Then use "setup(conf='project.conf')". 
> 
> Of course, this throws out all possibility of computed values, which is
> why we kept the config "language" in Python. You could state that the
> .conf file is used IFF the corresponding parameter is not provided to
> setup().

That just might work.  The idea of section headers being dynamically
determined by the nature of the current module distribution (is "ext1"
present or not?) seems a tiny bit dangerous; somewhere down that road
lies the madness of programming languages with dynamic syntax.  But the
ConfigParser syntax is so simple I don't think this minor abuse could be
carried very far.

        Greg