On 18 July 2017 at 01:25, Daniel Holth <dho...@gmail.com> wrote: > Yes, build_directory does not do the same thing as sdist -> unpack -> build. > It would be more likely to be useful if you are not going through the sdist > step for any reason on a tree that has been built before.
Ralf's questions about describing "build_directory=None" as in-place and "build_directory=<some_dir>" as out-of-tree also made me realise something, which is that the real distinction is between whether it's the frontend or the backend that is specifying the build directory. That is, "build_directory=<some_dir>" is the frontend saying "definitely do an out-of-tree build, and use this directory for the generated artifacts". Whether that's a clean directory or one containing artifacts from a previous build is thus up to to the frontend. By contrast, "build_directory=None" is telling the backend "Use your default build directory, regardless of whether that's in-place or out-of-tree", rather than specifically saying "Do an in-place build". Cheers, NIck. -- Nick Coghlan | ncogh...@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - Distutils-SIG@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig