[Biopython-dev] [Bug 1631] setup.py does not run

[Brad Chapman]

Hi Thomas;

> > Please read this thread:
> >
> > http://portal.open-bio.org/pipermail/biopython-dev/2004-April/001927.html
> >
> > This issue was discussed just a couple of weeks ago and changing the
> > extensions will not fix the problem.
> 
> I'm aware of that, but this will at least help people with python 2.2
> and gcc, right?

Sadly, not really. I've just been digging around into the guts of
distutils in 2.2 and the support for any C++ is really non-existent.
It basically expects that the C compiler can handle both C and C++
code (which was our major problem with non-portability of
C++ code across platforms).

The new setup.py is seriously kludgy but tries to take the important
bits out of the 2.3 distutils that aren't in 2.2 and use them to
resolve the problems.

Saying all that -- it is better to have the extensions be
"distutils-friendly" so the change is fine. But yeah, the issues are
pretty complicated and messy -- hence the complicated and messy
changes necessary in setup.py.

Brad