[vtk-developers] python install prefix in setup.py

[Mathieu Malaterre]

The whole python support IMHO should be rewritten as mentioned here:

http://vtk.org/Bug/bug.php?op=show&bugid=2257

As for the installation thing, it would be nice if the CMake Modules had 
an interface (?mymodule_INSTALL_PREFIX ?) to specify default 
installation path. I am thinking that this should be the same issue for 
Tcl, Python, Java.

2 cents,
Mathieu

David Gobbi wrote:
> The default install location for the VTK python wrappers in VTKcvs 
> doesn't make sense to me.
> If the VTK install prefix is /usr/local, then the python wrappers will 
> be installed here:
> 
>  /usr/local/python2.3/site-packages/
> 
> If python is installed somewhere else, (e.g. /usr/ is a common location) 
> then installing
> the wrappers in /usr/local isn't very useful.
> 
> The default behaviour of setup.py is to query the python executable to 
> find out where it is
> installed.  This behaviour is explicitly overridden by 
> VTK/Wrapping/Python/CMakeList.txt:
> 
>  SET(VTK_PYTHON_SETUP_ARGS "--prefix=\"${DOLLAR}{CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}\""
>      CACHE STRING "Arguments passed to \"python setup.py install ...\" 
> during installation.")
> 
> I think that having a customizable VTK_PYTHON_SETUP_ARGS is a good idea, 
> but the default
> value of this variable is not going to work for most people.
> 
> The best option is to query the PYTHON_EXECUTABLE to see where it was 
> installed, and use that
> as the wrapper install prefix instead of using CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX.
> 
> The python install prefix can be queried by running 'python -c "import 
> sys; print sys.prefix"',
> where 'python' is whatever PYTHON_EXECUTABLE has been set by cmake.
> 
> Does this make sense to anyone else?
> 
> - David
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