[Distutils] WinNT and distutils

[Michael Hudson]

Greg Stein <gstein@lyra.org> writes:

> On 28 Jan 2000, Michael Hudson wrote:
> >...
> > How hard are registry files to parse? They're just text aren't they?
> > (not on windows, can't tell). Would a simple parser written in Python
> > be even vaguely possible?
> 
> Registry files are binary files. You're thinking of a .reg file which can
> be passed to regsvr32. .reg files have syntax similar to .ini files.

Yup, you're right.
 
> In short: no, you cannot parse them. You must have access to the Win32
> registry functions.

Presumably Microsoft change the binary format every six months for
fun, too...

> There has been discussion about putting them into Python 1.6.

That would strike me as quite a good idea. It's hard to see how
distutils can function *really* well on Windows without them.

Cheers,
Michael