On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Carl Meyer <[email protected]> wrote:
> I propose adding a metadata file REQUIRED within the .egg-info > directory. The presence of this file indicates that the user > specifically required this distribution. The absence of the file > indicates that the distribution was installed as a dependency. The > contents of the file are not used. > I can imagine adding a little information, basically a log of when and why and who installed the package. For instance: agent: pip 0.5 install-date: 2009-10-08T13:44:00UTC installed-for-user: False installed-for-package: OtherPackage==0.3 Potentially a package could have multiple records, because multiple installers may in some sense touch a package (e.g., if you install YetAnotherPackage that requires the same library as OtherPackage). You could use INI-style and maybe label each record with the date, like [2009-10-08T13:44:00UTC]. This information seems fairly easy to generate. Updating it after installation would be nice, but also means already-installed packages can be written to, which is not as nice IMHO. Being unable to write to this file should be a non-fatal error for an installer. Either way, a package could become REQUIRED (or user-requested) at any time after it is installed. E.g.: easy_install Markdown easy_install ElementTree # which is required by MarkDown Now ElementTree should not be considered orphaned if MarkDown is removed. -- Ian Bicking | http://blog.ianbicking.org | http://topplabs.org/civichacker
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