why no python setup.py uninstall?

[Alia Khouri]

If the cannonical way to install a python app is

python setup.py install

one would expect the following to uninstall it

python setup.py uninstall

However, distutils doesn't automatically take care of that for you.

Is this by design? Or is this something that could/should be addressed
in a future version of distutils?

The reason this came up for me is that I have a scheduled script that
downloads the cvs/svn versions of certain python apps (w/extensions),
and then builds and installs them to site-packages automatically by
'python setup.py install'. Just to be extra clean about it, I would
prefer to uninstall first, and then install.
AK
PS: I also have to manually uninstall apps from Mac OS X panther:
searching for .plists etc. I wonder if that was deliberate or
otherwise too... hmm...

[Alia Khouri]

I'm guessing that this is a non-issue for most people (-;

[Peter Hansen]

Alia Khouri wrote:

I'm guessing that this is a non-issue for most people (-;

Well, you've allowed all of about 1.5 days for replies
to come, and on a weekend at that.

Be patient.

I would also guess it's a non-issue as well, however.
A quick perusal of the archives (which I leave to you)
would very likely show almost no discussion of this in
the past few years (at least, that's what I recall).

On your specific reason for asking: I would suggest
just not worrying about "being extra clean about it".
Python's generally pretty good about not messing up
when you install a new version of something without
uninstalling the previous version.

-Peter

[Colin J. Williams]

Peter Hansen wrote:

Alia Khouri wrote:

I'm guessing that this is a non-issue for most people (-;

Well, you've allowed all of about 1.5 days for replies
to come, and on a weekend at that.

Be patient.

I would also guess it's a non-issue as well, however.
A quick perusal of the archives (which I leave to you)
would very likely show almost no discussion of this in
the past few years (at least, that's what I recall).

On your specific reason for asking: I would suggest
just not worrying about "being extra clean about it".
Python's generally pretty good about not messing up
when you install a new version of something without
uninstalling the previous version.

-Peter

"Cleanlines s is next to godliness". Why not facilitate a cleanup?

This is not a big issue but it does deserve a response.

Colin W.

[alia_khouri]

Peter Hansen wrote:

On your specific reason for asking: I would suggest
just not worrying about "being extra clean about it".
Python's generally pretty good about not messing up
when you install a new version of something without
uninstalling the previous version.

Granted. However, the reason I did bring this up to begin with was the
odd 'exceptional' case when doing the python setup.py install
incantation over an older installation did cause problems.

I think a little database (maybe in xml?) of installed files/modules
and their locations would be useful, perhaps even for a future
automatic download/installation/dependency-tracking thingmabob that
still regretably still doesn't exist as parth of the stdlib in
Pythonia.

AK

[alia_khouri]

Peter Hansen wrote:

On your specific reason for asking: I would suggest
just not worrying about "being extra clean about it".
Python's generally pretty good about not messing up
when you install a new version of something without
uninstalling the previous version.

Granted. However, the reason I did bring this up to begin with was the
odd 'exceptional' case when doing the python setup.py install
incantation over an older installation did cause problems.

I think a little database (maybe in xml?) of installed files/modules
and their locations would be useful, perhaps even for a future
automatic download/installation/dependency-tracking thingmabob that
still regretably still doesn't exist as parth of the stdlib in
Pythonia.

AK

[Roger Binns]

<al*********@ya hoo.com> wrote in message news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

I think a little database (maybe in xml?) of installed files/modules
and their locations would be useful, perhaps even for a future
automatic download/installation/dependency-tracking thingmabob that
still regretably still doesn't exist as parth of the stdlib in
Pythonia.

Actually it does, indirectly

Instead of doing 'python setup.py install', change the last parameter
to bdist. You can add --format wininst, --format rpm and various
other choices to make a package native to your platform. You can
then use your platform tools to install and uninstall the files.
Or you can use the zip/tar formats and keep track of the files by
whatever means you want to.

http://docs.python.org/dist/built-dist.html

Roger

[richard]

Roger Binns wrote:

<al*********@ya hoo.com> wrote in message
news:11******** **************@ z14g2000cwz.goo glegroups.com.. .

I think a little database (maybe in xml?) of installed files/modules
and their locations would be useful, perhaps even for a future
automatic download/installation/dependency-tracking thingmabob that
still regretably still doesn't exist as parth of the stdlib in
Pythonia.

Actually it does, indirectly

Sorry, missed the OP. See PEP 261 for the plans in this area:

http://python.org/peps/pep-0262.html

combined with extensions to the setup.py metadata in:

http://python.org/peps/pep-0314.html

Most of the design / planning has been done. All we need is some developer
time to make it happen. Go visit the Catalog SIG if you're interested.

http://www.python.org/sigs/catalog-sig/
Richard

[Fuzzyman]

Installing new versions of modules over old versions has often caused
me problems. Particularly py3exe recently.

Admittedly 'uninstalling' the old version was as simple as deleting the
folder from 'site-packages'.....

Regards,

Fuzzy
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantib...thonutils.html