Pip succeeds whereas setup.py fails

Packaging
1

I’ve just found a funny case with a package, pyv4l2, where setup.py build failed to build it, but pip is magically successful.

This is how I built with setup.py:

$ python3.6 setup.py build
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6
creating build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6/pyv4l2
copying pyv4l2/exceptions.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6/pyv4l2
copying pyv4l2/__init__.py -> build/lib.linux-x86_64-3.6/pyv4l2
running build_ext
building 'pyv4l2.frame' extension
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/pyv4l2
gcc -pthread -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -fPIC -I/home/quan/.pyenv/versions/3.6.12/include/python3.6m -c pyv4l2/frame.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/pyv4l2/frame.o
gcc: error: pyv4l2/frame.c: No such file or directory
gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

Here is pip:

$ python3.6 -m pip install pyv4l2
Collecting pyv4l2
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/33/de/1f484ce034347d8900923d005e613d49531ec5f9cce48e810c3dff008e8d/pyv4l2-1.0.2.tar.gz
Installing collected packages: pyv4l2
  Running setup.py install for pyv4l2 ... done
Successfully installed pyv4l2-1.0.2

Could someone explain me why pip is successful in this case.

1 Like
2

Did you run setup.py from the GitHub clone? It seems like the repo and sdist on PyPI contain different files. This is a common mistake—what you see on GitHub is usually different from what you download on PyPI.

I can run setup.py build successfully after pip download pyv4l2 and extract the .tar.gz manually.

1 Like
3

Thanks, I run setup.py on the master branch. That’s why…

1 Like