> How can I add such commands (including timestamp checking) to a setup.py > file, > so that it runs when I call 'python setup.py build' ? I can write python > functions to perform those command, and I found timestamp checking functions > in distutils.dep_util, but just can't find the way to connect such commands > to the build step....
Take a look at the build_ext command. It considers all Extension objects (in build_extensions), and for each one, it does dependency checking (in build_extension). It uses the newer_group machinery. More generally, in the run method of your command, just don't do anything (except perhaps logging) if you find your outputs are up-to-date. Multi-level dependencies aren't quite supported with that approach; you can either make multiple commands that one has to run in sequence (or use subcommands), or you put it all in a single run method which sequentially first tries to generate the intermediate outputs (doing nothing if they are up-to-date), and then the final outputs (doing nothing when they are newer than the intermediate ones). HTH, Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
