[SciPy-dev] distutils, weave dependency of scipy/xplt/Mplot.py

[Pearu Peterson]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, Arnd Baecker wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> while tracking down a problem with scipy on the latest
> quantian 0.4.9.4 (based on Knoppix)
> we came across the following:
> 
> A) weave dependency of scipy/xplt/Mplot.py
> 
>    In scipy/xplt/Mplot.py the function _getdir()
>    uses weave to get a directory that the user
>    has write access to.
> 
>    So commenting out the line
>      weave = ppimport('weave');             _level_docs(weave)
>    in scipy/__init__.py
>    is not enough to remove any dependency on weave.
>    Would it be possible to write a _getdir() which
>    does not make use of weave ?

A quick look at the xplt code makes also me to wonder whether weave
dependency is necessary there but I am not familiar with xplt details.
Travis?

>    Presumably this is not that critical, but in the quantian
>    case python2.3-dev was not installed which contains distutils.
> 
>    This brings me to my second question:
> 
> B) It seems that without distutils an `import weave` fails.
>    Are distutils really necessary to _use_ weave ?
>    (At least for scipy itself distutils seems only
>    necessary to run scipy.test())

I think the answer is yes. For one reason, do

  grep distutils *.py */*.py

in weave/ directory ;)

Pearu