error: can't copy '<dirname>': doesn't exist or not a regular file

[jaraco]

BPO	19286
Nosy	@jaraco, @tarekziade, @merwok
Files	example.zip

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

Show more details

GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/merwok'
closed_at = <Date 2013-11-02.17:06:33.923>
created_at = <Date 2013-10-18.19:11:00.059>
labels = ['library']
title = "error: can't copy '<dirname>': doesn't exist or not a regular file"
updated_at = <Date 2013-11-02.17:06:33.922>
user = 'https://github.com/jaraco'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2013-11-02.17:06:33.922>
actor = 'jaraco'
assignee = 'eric.araujo'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2013-11-02.17:06:33.923>
closer = 'jaraco'
components = ['Distutils']
creation = <Date 2013-10-18.19:11:00.059>
creator = 'jaraco'
dependencies = []
files = ['32210']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 19286
keywords = []
message_count = 4.0
messages = ['200298', '200300', '201978', '201981']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['jaraco', 'tarek', 'eric.araujo', 'python-dev']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue19286'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.3', 'Python 3.4']

[jaraco]

On Python 2.7 and 3.3, if the package_data glob happens to match a directory, it will trigger this error during build:

error: can't copy '<package>/<dirname>': doesn't exist or not a regular file

It seems that package_data is not very smart about filtering out directories, and assumes every name matched in the glob is a file. This is particularly inconvenient when one has a directory structure of package data. Consider:

	package_data={
		'bug_pkg': (
			[
				'html/*.*',
				'html/something-1.0/*.*',
			]
		),
	},

with a directory structure of:

.
│ setup.py
│
└───bug_pkg
│ __init__.py
│
└───html
│ index.html
│
└───something-1.0
index.dat

Since 'html/*.*' matches 'something-1.0', distutils assumes something-1.0 is a file and tries to copy it and fails with:

error: can't copy 'bug_pkg/html/something-1.0': doesn't exist or not a regular file

I believe distutils should be filtering out folders from package_data. In the past, users (including myself) have worked around the issue by using '*.*' to match only files, but that's a poor heuristic is the above example demonstrates.

This issue was encountered when using sphinx-bootstrap-theme, which adds directories to sphinx HTML docs with directories like 'bootstrap-3.0.0', which are difficult to not match in a glob.

Is there any reason why globs specified in package_data should not exclude all directories?

[jaraco]

The attached example minimally replicates the issue.

[python-dev]

New changeset 22bac968e226 by Jason R. Coombs in branch '2.7':
Issue bpo-19286: Adding test demonstrating the failure when a directory is found in the package_data globs.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/22bac968e226

New changeset 0a1cf947eff6 by Jason R. Coombs in branch '2.7':
Issue bpo-19286: [distutils] Only match files in build_py.find_data_files.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0a1cf947eff6

[python-dev]

New changeset d80207d15294 by Jason R. Coombs in branch '3.2':
Issue bpo-19286: Adding test demonstrating the failure when a directory is found in the package_data globs.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/d80207d15294

New changeset 265d369ad3b9 by Jason R. Coombs in branch '3.2':
Issue bpo-19286: [distutils] Only match files in build_py.find_data_files.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/265d369ad3b9

New changeset 69f8288056eb by Jason R. Coombs in branch '3.3':
Merge with 3.2 for Issue bpo-19286.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/69f8288056eb

New changeset 9eafe31251b4 by Jason R. Coombs in branch 'default':
Merge with 3.3 for Issue bpo-19286.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/9eafe31251b4