Marius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com> writes:

> Pythons setuptools are deprecating the "python setup.py test" command:
>
> https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/1684
>
> As you may know, "python setup.py test" is what python-build-system does
> during the 'check' phase.
>
> I'm not sure what we should do about it, and there does not seem to be
> an established "community consensus" yet.  I suppose many packages will
> be migrating to Pytest and/or Tox?  Perhaps we could check package
> inputs and try to guess the correct test command?
>
> Something to keep in mind for future python-build-system improvements...
>
> PS: Apparently "python setup.py install" is going away too:
> https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/1684#issuecomment-508302910

To my knowledge, the "targets" of the setup.py script are somewhat not
standardized, even though they seem like they ought to be.  At the very
least, you are right about the "test" target.  Even pytest dropped
support for it since last year:

https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/changelog.html?highlight=%22setup.py%20test%22#id511

This is just one example of how a project can implement its own
idiosyncratic build logic.  Somebody uses tox, someone else uses a
Makefile with a "check" target (that runs pytest), somebody else just
runs pytest directly...  It's business as usual as far as I can tell.
Guix can accommodate all those idiosyncrasies via modifications to the
phases, and if the Python community starts using one method much more
often, we can just make that the default in the build system.

-- 
Chris