[Distutils] Adding entry points into Distutils ?

[Doug Hellmann]

On May 7, 2009, at 10:20 AM, Tres Seaver wrote:

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> Eric Smith wrote:
>> Doug Hellmann wrote:
>>> On May 7, 2009, at 8:54 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2009/5/7 Doug Hellmann <doug.hellmann at gmail.com>:
>>>>> I would argue the other way.  Why force authors of console  
>>>>> scripts to
>>>>> deal
>>>>> with entry points instead of just installing the script as-is?
>>>> Please explain "as-is" with reference to ensuring that the script
>>>> works cross-platform. I think the benefit of entry points for  
>>>> scripts
>>>> is that it generates appropriate wrappers to allow use on all
>>>> platforms.
>>> I write a python script call hello.py like this:
>>>
>>>    #!/usr/bin/env python
>>>
>>>    def main():
>>>        print 'hello!'
>>>
>>>    if __name__ == '__main__':
>>>        main()
>>>
>>> Why make me define an entry point for that?  I can just put it in
>>> /usr/bin or somewhere in the path on Windows and call it as  
>>> "hello.py".
>>>
>>> Does setuptools give me something extra for Windows?  I'm not a  
>>> regular
>>> Windows user, so it's likely that there are features I don't know  
>>> about.
>>
>> Yes. It creates a .exe wrapper [1]. By using entry points, I don't  
>> need
>> to care what the target system is. Also, /usr/bin/env might invoke  
>> the
>> wrong python.
>
> Exactly:  using entry points for console scripts guarantees that the
> python into which the corresponding distribution is installed is the  
> one
> used to run the script, which is *highly* desirable.  Otherwise, you  
> end
> up with the "just install everything in the system Python's
> site-packages" mess.

pip installs my scripts into a virtualenv without any issue and  
without using entry points, AFAICT.

I guess if we move to requiring entry points and disallowing simple  
script distribution I'll need to find another way to package  
virtualenvwrapper.  Since it's a bash script, it doesn't have entry  
points.  I've been using setuptools to package it so it can be  
installed via easy_install, since it is a Python development tool.

Doug