build.py causes FTBFS from alternative build tool

[grawlinson]

Hey, package maintainer from Arch Linux here. 👋

Just picking up our conversation from #600.

I can't seem to get reuse to build from source when using the build module to generate Python wheels.

Why do we use build? Well ...

Because there are ~5 (at last count) different ways to build a Python project that is PEP-517 compatible, hence us trying to only use the `build` module to build wheels rather than remembering the various CLI invocations for each individual tool. `build` is smart enough to hook into these other PEP-517 compatible builders and use their own build systems to generate a wheel/sdist archive.

The only hint I have of something breaking is running the following:

[root@chroot reuse]# python -m build --help
po/gl.po: warning: Charset "CHARSET" is not a portable encoding name.
                   Message conversion to user's charset might not work.

The command fails successfully, resulting in no wheel archive in dist/.

Any subsequent invocations of python -m build --help result in no output and no wheel archive in dist/:

[root@chroot reuse]# python -m build --help
[root@chroot reuse]#

For reference, this is the normal output:

$ python -m build --help
usage: python -m build [-h] [--version] [--sdist] [--wheel] [--outdir OUTDIR] [--skip-dependency-check] [--no-isolation] [--config-setting CONFIG_SETTING] [srcdir]

    A simple, correct PEP 517 build frontend.

    By default, a source distribution (sdist) is built from {srcdir}
    and a binary distribution (wheel) is built from the sdist.
    This is recommended as it will ensure the sdist can be used
    to build wheels.

    Pass -s/--sdist and/or -w/--wheel to build a specific distribution.
    If you do this, the default behavior will be disabled, and all
    artifacts will be built from {srcdir} (even if you combine
    -w/--wheel with -s/--sdist, the wheel will be built from {srcdir}).

positional arguments:
  srcdir                source directory (defaults to current directory)

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version, -V         show program's version number and exit
  --sdist, -s           build a source distribution (disables the default behavior)
  --wheel, -w           build a wheel (disables the default behavior)
  --outdir OUTDIR, -o OUTDIR
                        output directory (defaults to {srcdir}/dist)
  --skip-dependency-check, -x
                        do not check that build dependencies are installed
  --no-isolation, -n    do not isolate the build in a virtual environment
  --config-setting CONFIG_SETTING, -C CONFIG_SETTING
                        pass options to the backend.  options which begin with a hyphen must be in the form of "--config-setting=--opt(=value)" or "-C--opt(=value)"

After flailing around, I've managed to find a horrible horrible hacky workaround that I most definitely am not proud of. Here be dragons.

[stephanlachnit]

Just wanted to say that we have the exact same issue on Debian. Your patch fixes building, but I still get super odd behavior. E.g.

E: reuse: unknown-file-in-python-module-directory [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/AUTHORS.rst]
E: reuse: unknown-file-in-python-module-directory [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/CHANGELOG.md]
E: reuse: unknown-file-in-python-module-directory [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/README.md]

These are files clearly installed in the wrong directory.

Also, I'm not sure if installing the Licenses to usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/reuse-1.1.0.dist-info/LICENSES/ is a good idea either, since distribution have their own way to handle installation of licenses. But maybe that's too specific, and it can be easily patched.

[carmenbianca]

@stephanlachnit Your bug is fixed in #657 and has been released as a patch in v1.1.1.

[stephanlachnit]

@carmenbianca the licenses are still installed:

I: reuse: package-contains-documentation-outside-usr-share-doc [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/reuse-1.1.1.dist-info/LICENSES/Apache-2.0.txt]
I: reuse: package-contains-documentation-outside-usr-share-doc [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/reuse-1.1.1.dist-info/LICENSES/CC-BY-SA-4.0.txt]
I: reuse: package-contains-documentation-outside-usr-share-doc [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/reuse-1.1.1.dist-info/LICENSES/CC0-1.0.txt]
I: reuse: package-contains-documentation-outside-usr-share-doc [usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/reuse-1.1.1.dist-info/LICENSES/GPL-3.0-or-later.txt]

The other files (README etc) are gone though.

[grawlinson]

It might be easier to switch away from Poetry to something with a proven track record.

[stephanlachnit]

It might be easier to switch away from Poetry to something with a proven track record.

I'm sure you can achieve good results with poetry, but I agree that I think there is not a lot of experience in terms of distribution yet (at least on the end user side).

[carmenbianca]

Regarding the licences: This is deliberate Poetry behaviour. See python-poetry/poetry-core#57.

I did nothing to configure this. By mere virtue of the LICENSES/ directory existing, the licence files are put in the dist-info directory. I don't know whether this is good or bad. In any case, it should affect all Poetry projects.

[carmenbianca]

@grawlinson @stephanlachnit #674 should fix the bug listed in the original comment. It turned out to be surprisingly easy. I aim to have a patch release (v1.1.2) out really soon that contains exclusively this fix (+ the fix from v1.1.1, obviously). Thank you for being awesome maintainers!

[carmenbianca]

Closed by #675.

v1.1.2 is released on PyPI. Thanks again @ maintainers!

[stephanlachnit]

Can confirm it works, thanks @carmenbianca!