[lxml-dev] specifying lxml as a dependency?

[Chris Withers]

Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>> Linux binary eggs are too problematic to be worth
>>> trying.  The system will have to have libxml2/libxslt and the -dev
>>> packages (on Linux),
>> Okay, so the user will have to get libxml2 and libxslt on the system
>> "somehow" (ie: os package manager, source install, etc) *before*
>> easy_install'ing lxml?
> 
> I wouldn't know any distribution that doesn't install libxml2/libxslt by
> default, and for most Linux users, installing the -dev packages for a
> library is not much harder than eating a warm pie (assuming you like the
> taste).

Indeed, but it still has to be done, while it doesn't on windows, which 
is interesting ;-)

>>> and they could do "STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install
>>> Twiddler" to build a static lxml on Macs
>> Where would "STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install Twiddler" go?
> 
> That's the command that will install Twiddler on a Mac once Twiddler has a
> dependency on lxml and is uploaded to PyPI.

Okay, why does Mac need this and linux doesn't?

> Well, development continues, so there are quite some internal differences.
> What's relevant here is that the setup.py in the current trunk knows how
> to download and build libxml2 and libxslt, and how to build lxml
> statically using the result. That's specifically made (but not only meant)
> for Mac users that run into crashes due to conflicting library versions.

Ah okay, interesting, would it work on linux too if libxml2 and libxslt 
aren't available?

(of course, if you're following the discussions on the distutils-sig, 
setup.py's that do this amount of work are very very evil...)

cheers,

Chris

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