Packaging python bits with setuptools that depend on non-distutil packages

[loupgaroublond at gmail.com]

Hey List,

I'm working on a couple of projects to get them to use setuptools, but i've come across an interesting dillema. Some core systems modules, such as dbus and rpm aren't normally provided as eggs, because they are built as part of the build process of the original C code. This yields two issues.

1) I cannot use virtualenv to test these packages in a clean room. I like to test things in as clean of an area as possible, and sometimes it's difficult to figure out what i've installed might be modifying some expected behavior. Virtualenv let's you build very light weight containers for testing python code in, but without distutils, it's hard to run some setup script or rely on easy_install to provide the needed bits.

2) How do we normally declare dependencies on these components in setuptools? If i were to push the package i'm making to the Python Cheese shop, it would depend on something the user may not actually have installed. How do i go about declaring these dependencies?

To make a short story long, i'm sure there are ways to include code snippets in dbus, rpm, and possibly other packages that also generate egg info. This would at least let me declare those packages as dependencies. The bigger issue i have though, is how can i import them in some generic fashion into virtualenv?

Please advise.

-Yaakov
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