[Freeipa-devel] [PATCH] setup.py for freeipa-python

[Karl MacMillan]

On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 11:08 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Hi Rob,
> 
> On 10/11/07, Rob Crittenden <rcritten at redhat.com> wrote:
> > William Jon McCann wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Here is a patch that adds a setup.py for the freeipa-python package.
> > >
> > > This makes it easier to build tarballs, rpms, and do installs.  It can
> > > even generate a spec file:
> > > python setup.py bdist_rpm --spec
> > >
> > > Jon
> > >
> >
> > I'm not familiar with the python distutils package, what does this buy
> > us? We already generate tar.gz and rpm files.
> 
> Well, in my opinion, freeipa/Makefile really isn't a good build
> system.  It has a number of problems:
> 
>  * It exists outside of the discrete packages
>    If someone wants to build or package one of the individual modules
> either from hg or from a tarball it isn't straighforward

Really? What doesn't work? The top-level makefile is supposed to just be
a convenience for developers for building everything and making
packages. And the individual tarballs get built whenever the src rpms
are build.

>  * The version numbers of the individual packages isn't contained in the package

They are in the spec files - where else should they be?

>  * It is too heavily biased toward RPM production and not extensible

Well - the lower-level makefiles are just plain makefiles. Again, the
top-level is more just a convenience for developers - i.e. me :).

>  * The dist target builds RPMs and SRPMs

what should it build?

>  * Does not seem to detect python versions or directories

It should - e.g.:

PYTHONLIBDIR ?= $(shell  python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import *;
print get_python_lib()")

>  * Does not have a mechanism for specifying files to include/exclude
> from distribution
> 

What would that be used for?

> The Makefiles in the individual sudirectories have their own problems.
>  It is probably sufficient for making the official tarballs and rpms
> for the project but it is very inconvenient for an external
> developer/packager to use.
> 
> I would like to improve the overall system.  Since the subdirectories
> are packaged and installed separately I think it makes sense for each
> to be self-contained.  This makes it way easier to work with, hack on,
> and test each package individually.
> 

I'm having trouble understanding exactly what problems you are
encountering. I'm definitely open to improving the build system - it is
currently just the easiest possible thing we could do, so it has many
shortcomings. However, understanding what you are looking for would help
choose the right direction for the changes.

> Looking at ipa-python specifically:
> 
> Since this is a pure python package, I think it makes sense to use:
> http://docs.python.org/lib/module-distutils.html
> 
> For one, it is the way people expect to work with a python library.
> The Makefile that is used is a little lacking:
>  * doesn't compile the .py files
>  * maintain a version number
>  * generate the .spec file
>  * have a dist (tarball) target
> 

I'm not a huge distutils fan. At the very least, the spec files it
produces are not usable as a basis for packages to be included in Fedora
(and likely other distributions), so we would end up maintaining those
by hand anyway.

> I suppose another option would be to use autotools but I don't think
> that makes sense for a pure python module.
> 

I'm open to autotooling everything - but I have no experience myself.

Karl