[Distutils] easy_install, find-links, etc

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 11:08 AM 10/4/2005 -0500, Ian Bicking wrote:
>The whole find-links thing is getting confusing -- right now each system
>has to give its own set of find-links, and they aren't well inherited.
>So, for instance, if Paste has some custom packages on an index page,
>you can't just require Paste -- you have to require Paste plus put
>whatever find-links settings are needed.
>
>What would be mightily useful is if you could at least advise -- from
>within a package -- on places to find some of the requirements for that
>package.  E.g., .egg-info/find_links.txt.  I think it is inevitable that
>packages will require custom builds, and we can't always push those
>changes into PyPI or track those changes in aggregate package indexes.

Patches to implement this gratefully accepted.  :)  Please include:

* argument handler entry point to allow them to be specified as a setup() 
keyword (I suggest "dependency_links")
* documentation in setuptools.txt for the keyword
* a metadata writer entry point to write the file (you might be able to 
reuse one of the existing entry points
* code in easy_install's process_distribution() function to read and 
process the metadata before doing dependency processing

Thanks.  :)