distutils: How to pass a user defined parameter to setup.py?

Question

Please prompt me how to pass a user-defined parameter both from the command line and setup.cfg configuration file to distutils\' setup.py script. I want to write a setup.py

Answer 1

To be fully compatible with both python setup.py install and pip install . you need to use environment variables because pip option --install-option= is bugged:

1. pip --install-option leaks across lines
2. Determine what should be done about --(install|global)-option with Wheels
3. pip not naming abi3 wheels correctly

This is a full example not using the --install-option:

import os
environment_variable_name = 'MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE'
environment_variable_value = os.environ.get( environment_variable_name, None )

if environment_variable_value is not None:
    sys.stderr.write( "Using '%s=%s' environment variable!\n" % (
            environment_variable_name, environment_variable_value ) )

setup(
        name = 'packagename',
        version = '1.0.0',
        ...
)

Then, you can run it like this on Linux:

MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1 pip install .
MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1 pip install -e .
MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1 python setup.py install
MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1 python setup.py develop

But, if you are on Windows, run it like this:

set "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1" && pip install .
set "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1" && pip install -e .
set "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1" && python setup.py install
set "MY_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE=1" && python setup.py develop

References:

1. How to obtain arguments passed to setup.py from pip with '--install-option'?
2. Passing command line arguments to pip install
3. Passing the library path as a command line argument to setup.py