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during Python installation, setup.py should not use .pydistutils.cfg #48905
Description
| BPO | 4655 |
|---|---|
| Nosy | @loewis, @warsaw, @tarekziade, @ned-deily, @merwok, @bitdancer |
Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.
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GitHub fields:
assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2008-12-14.01:31:04.213>
labels = ['type-bug', 'expert-installation', '3.9', '3.10', '3.8', 'build']
title = 'during Python installation, setup.py should not use .pydistutils.cfg'
updated_at = <Date 2020-11-10.20:55:09.111>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/jah'bugs.python.org fields:
activity = <Date 2020-11-10.20:55:09.111>
actor = 'iritkatriel'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Build', 'Installation']
creation = <Date 2008-12-14.01:31:04.213>
creator = 'jah'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 4655
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['77771', '108717', '121408', '182483']
nosy_count = 7.0
nosy_names = ['loewis', 'barry', 'tarek', 'ned.deily', 'eric.araujo', 'r.david.murray', 'jah']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue4655'
versions = ['Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9', 'Python 3.10']
Activity
jah commentedon Dec 14, 2008
When installing python 2.6, I used:
./configure --prefix=/home/name/usr
Installation was fine and everything was installed to:
~/usr/lib/python2.6
But the .so files were installed to:
~/usr/lib/python
As ~/usr/lib/python was (no longer) declared in my PYTHONPATH, I ran
into import issues. The problem was due to a forgotten file:
~/.pydistutils.cfg
So this is clearly a user error, but I wonder if it is something which
should be avoided at the setup.py level.
When installing python, the installation locations are derived from the
results of ./configure. When setup.py is eventually called, the
installation locations can change. This seems undesirable. Would it be
better if setup.py instructed distutils to ignore any configuration file
so that the installation directories matched what was used by the rest
of 'make install'?
Related: http://bugs.python.org/issue1180
[-]setup.py should not use .pydistutils.cfg[/-][+]during Python installation, setup.py should not use .pydistutils.cfg[/+]BreamoreBoy commentedon Jun 26, 2010
Could an installation guru please take a look at this?
merwok commentedon Nov 18, 2010
Not reading .pydistutils.cfg during CPython’s build seems a good idea to me. I would like confirming opinions.
ned-deily commentedon Feb 20, 2013
rdm notes in duplicate bpo-6138:
There is a bug here, of some sort. Either the .pydistutils.cfg file's
install clause should override the default --prefix somehow, or the
error message should indicate where the setting for 'home' and
'--prefix' came from to enable the user to debug the configuration. In
the latter case there would also need to be a way to explicitly tell
either make install or configure to ignore .pydistutils.cfg. In the
former case, an explicit --prefix passed to configure would need to
override .pydistutils.cfg.
iritkatriel commentedon Oct 4, 2022
This is no longer relevant for 3.12 and probably not worth working about for older versions after all these years.