This page discuss the way to separate the metadata in a static PKG-INFO like file.


 * use the distutils.dist.DistutilsMetadata as a basis to think about a read/write API [[http://bugs.python.org/file12746/get_metadata.diff| an example]]
    - implemented in distutils2.metadata.DistributionMetadata

 * think about the dynamic metadata issue (can we provide something for that ?)

 * write a best practice guide for people to separate their metadata in a separate file, and use it in their setup.py
    - progress about that tracked in http://bugs.python.org/issue8252


== TresSeaver's notes ==

Matthias Klose and I worked on this a bit.  We settled on the
idea of reusing the 'setup.cfg' file, by relaxing the "one section
per command" rule to allow spelling more arbitrary metadata.

I commented to reflect work happening in distutils2 –ÉA (Éric Araujo)

In particular, we proposed the following changes:

 * Document use of extra sections, not directly connected to a command.
   - work in progress (ÉA)

 * Allow expansion of values using '${key:value}' semantics from
 other sections.

  * Alternative:  When passing arguments to commands, pass the whole
  'ConfigParser' (to allow pulling in config from other commands
  / sections.  This is more general, so maybe a "better" choice, but
  might break backward-compatibility with out-of-core commands.

 * Add new distutils commands, each with their own sections in 'setup.cfg'
 (these sections would break out files currently labeled only as 'data'
 into categories more useful to downstream packageers).

  * 'install_docs'

  * 'install_i18n' / 'install_locales'. See the Ubuntu extension which
  alread does this stuff: 'python-distutils-extra', maintained by
  Sebastian Heinlein.

  * 'install_tests'?

  * Alternative:  add one or more new sections, not based on a command,
  which captures the extra stuff.

  See http://hg.python.org/distutils2/file/tip/docs/design/wiki.rst —ÉA

 * Add a distutils command which generates ConfigParser section text
 (on 'sys.stdout') based on values passed to 'setup()'.  This command
 would provide a migration path for existing distributions, who would
 capture the output to a file, review it, and then concatenate it onto
 their 'setup.cfg'.

 * Eventually, the only thing in 'setup.py' for the majority of packages
 would be:

   try:
       from setuptools import setup
   except ImportError:
       from distutils import setup
   setup()  # use the data in setup.cfg


 * The only reason to include 'setup.py' at all would be for
 compatibility with existing docs, etc.  The "normal" installation dance
 might be something like:

   $ python -m distutils.commands.install

 or a generated script which did the same thing.