[Python-Dev] buildtime vs runtime in Distutils

[Tarek Ziadé]

2009/11/15 "Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de>:
>> http://bugs.python.org/issue4359 reminds me that Distutils reads build
>> files like Makefile or pyconfig.h to get some environment
>> variables through the sysconfig module at *runtime*.
>>
>> This cannot work on all platforms, when our Makefile is not shipped
>> with python but python-devel. (like Fedora)
>
> I don't see a problem with that: you'll need the python-devel package
> *anyway* when running distutils, for many packages.

The problem is that the main python distribution ("python") is not
working as advertised since
it contains distutils, which requires "python-devel" to work.

This implies that "python" has a dependency on "python-devel", which
does not make sense
anymore for linux distros to have two distinct packages for Python.

Having some of the makefile vars stored in stdlib solve this problem.

Tarek