Avoid setup.py?

[tdegeus]

Is there a way to avoid having a setup.py and to have everything in a pyproject.toml?

[henryiii]

Sure, if you use scikit-build-core. scikit-build (or even scikit-build-core in setuptools mode) can't avoid setup.py, since there doesn't seem to be a way to add third-party keyword arguments to setup() in pyproject.toml.

[henryiii]

Both https://github.com/pybind/scikit_build_example and https://github.com/scikit-hep/cookie when using skbuild as the backend are setup.py free. :) Awkward-core has been shipping without a setup.py for a few months now.

[tdegeus]

Thanks! So simply put if I require scikit-build-options I have to use a setup.py. A secondary question is: can I avoid putting things like name in setup.py:setup if I also put it is pyproject.toml? Edit: never mind the cookiecutter answers ;)

[henryiii]

That's a bit too simple, IMO :). scikit-build-core has lots of options in tool.scikit-build, I'd recommend looking over the readme (and there's a list of improved features, too!). The main issue is there's no equivalent of setup.py where you can do anything you want, so we've been enabling features users want one at a time. Things that are still missing are a way to have a "pure python fallback" if compilation fails and a way to customize the compilation failure message.

Though, to be fair, two more things that are still missing are selecting a different target (vs. install) and selecting the CMakeLists.txt location, which are both scikit-build options.

[Ranger-D]

Excuse me,I don't get the point. How can install the package if there isn't a setup.py.

[henryiii]

You should never be invoking setup.py directly, that's been deprecated for years (See https://blog.ganssle.io/articles/2021/10/setup-py-deprecated.html for example). Many projects no longer have one. You should be using tools that use PEP 517 interface to build the package, like pip and build. You can install with pip or installer.

[leha-bot]

Sure, if you use scikit-build-core. scikit-build (or even scikit-build-core in setuptools mode) can't avoid setup.py, since there doesn't seem to be a way to add third-party keyword arguments to setup() in pyproject.toml.

Hello, @henryiii ,
If I correctly understood you, seems pyproject.toml already support keywords: https://github.com/xvitaly/wloc/blob/master/pyproject.toml#L21-L31 (simple project of my friend related to geoloc)

[henryiii]

“third-party keyword arguments” means you can’t set things like setup(cmake_source_dir = “.”) in pyproject.toml.