n | .. _intro: |
n | .. _distutils-intro: |
| |
| **************************** |
| An Introduction to Distutils |
| **************************** |
| |
| This document covers using the Distutils to distribute your Python modules, |
| concentrating on the role of developer/distributor: if you're looking for |
n | information on installing Python modules, you should refer to the Installing |
n | information on installing Python modules, you should refer to the |
| Python Modules (XXX reference: ../inst/inst.html) manual. |
| :ref:`install-index` chapter. |
| |
| |
n | .. _concepts: |
n | .. _distutils-concepts: |
| |
| Concepts & Terminology |
| ====================== |
| |
| Using the Distutils is quite simple, both for module developers and for |
| users/administrators installing third-party modules. As a developer, your |
| responsibilities (apart from writing solid, well-documented and well-tested |
| code, of course!) are: |
| address this need. Packagers will take source distributions released by module |
| developers, build them on one or more platforms, and release the resulting built |
| distributions. Thus, users on the most popular platforms will be able to |
| install most popular Python module distributions in the most natural way for |
| their platform, without having to run a single setup script or compile a line of |
| code. |
| |
| |
t | .. _simple-example: |
t | .. _distutils-simple-example: |
| |
| A Simple Example |
| ================ |
| |
| The setup script is usually quite simple, although since it's written in Python, |
| there are no arbitrary limits to what you can do with it, though you should be |
| careful about putting arbitrarily expensive operations in your setup script. |
| Unlike, say, Autoconf-style configure scripts, the setup script may be run |