Re: Python conflicts.

[Ricardo Wurmus <ricardo.wurmus@mdc-berlin.de>]

Federico Beffa <beffa@ieee.org> writes:

>> 2) lib/python$version/site-packages/site.{py,pyc}
>>
>> Another file that frequently causes conflicts is "site.py" (and its
>> compiled cousin).  It seems to me that "site.py" doesn't contain any
>> module-specific information and is probably the same for all modules.  I
>> would like to change "python-build-system" such that Python modules do
>> not install this file at all.
>>
>> The only problem I see is that the "python" package itself does not come
>> with this file.  If it should be provided at all I think that it should
>> come from the "python" package, rather than any of the modules that may
>> or may not be installed.
>
> 'site.py[c]' is installed and used by 'setuptools' based
> programs/libraries. The purpose of the file is to add sub-directories to
> PYTHONPATH. If you remove the file, libraries configured with setuptools
> will not work anymore, unless you do the work done by 'site.py' in
> another way.
>
> https://pythonhosted.org/setuptools/easy_install.html

Currently, we have *many* packages providing this file.  My goal is to
avoid the confusing and verbose conflict warnings by only providing it
once.  Is it feasible to let our "python" package install "site.py" once
and remove the file from all other packages?

Right now we only have one of these many files installed at a time
anyway, so I assume they all have the same contents.  The "python"
package creates lib/python${version}/site-packages/ with a README
already in which "site.py" is mentioned.  I suggest we let "python"
install "site.py" once and for all.

Obviously, we cannot *just* remove it and expect things to continue
working.

~~ Ricardo