Mention dist-info files in the packaging policy?

[Nick Coghlan]

I just noticed that the packaging policy doesn't currently mention
dist-info directories, only the older egg-info:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python#Files_to_include

Does that need to go through FPC, or can we just fix it as a bug fix
that brings the downstream docs in line with the upstream metadata
generation?

Cheers,
Nick.

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

> > > > > "NC" == Nick Coghlan  writes:

NC> I just noticed that the packaging policy doesn't currently mention
NC> dist-info directories, only the older egg-info:
NC> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python#Files_to_include

dist-info is completely new to me.  I never particularly understood eggs
so I'm sure I'll understand "dists" or whatever it's called now.
There's also a separate document for egg files:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python_Eggs which would
probably need rewriting.

NC> Does that need to go through FPC, or can we just fix it as a bug fix
NC> that brings the downstream docs in line with the upstream metadata
NC> generation?

Well, only FPC members can edit pages in the wiki under Packaging:.  I
can't imagine that this change would involve a simple s/egg/dist/ so
please do prepare a draft and file an FPC ticket.

- J<

[Nick Coghlan]

On 23 September 2015 at 02:54, Jason L Tibbitts III  wrote:
> > > > > > "NC" == Nick Coghlan  writes:
>
> NC> I just noticed that the packaging policy doesn't currently mention
> NC> dist-info directories, only the older egg-info:
> NC> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Python#Files_to_include
>
> dist-info is completely new to me.  I never particularly understood eggs
> so I'm sure I'll understand "dists" or whatever it's called now.

It's a metadata directory installed alongside Python packages to let
Python tools know which packages are installed:
https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0376/#one-dist-info-directory-per-instal...

At various times over the last couple of years we'd discussed the
notion of using pip rather than direct setup.py invocation in the
Python install macros, which would generate that more complete
metadata rather than the partial metadata generated in .egg-info by
setuptools, or the complete lack of installation metadata generated by
plain distutils. (The main discussion I remember is one with Toshio
Kuratomi at Flock 2013, but I think it also came up in a discussion
with Slavek Kabrda last year).

However, it looks like I'd misrembered the situation, and changing the
RPM install macros to generate modern metadata is still in the "this
might be desirable" stage. That's a much bigger change than just
tweaking the docs to mention the updated metadata location.

Cheers,
Nick.