I'm looking for a way to include some feature in a python (extension) module in installation phase.
In a practical manner:
I have a python library that has 2 implementations of the same function, one internal (slow) and one that depends from an external library (fast, in C).
I want that this library is optional and can be activated at compile/install time using a flag like:
python setup.py install # (it doesn't include the fast library)
python setup.py --enable-fast install
I have to use Distutils, however all solution are well accepted!
An example of exactly what you want is the sqlalchemy's cextensions, which are there specifically for the same purpose - faster C implementation. In order to see how SA implemented it you need to look at 2 files:
1) setup.py. As you can see from the extract below, they handle the cases with setuptools and distutils:
try:
from setuptools import setup, Extension, Feature
except ImportError:
from distutils.core import setup, Extension
Feature = None
Later there is a check if Feature: and the extension is configured properly for each case using variable extra, which is later added to the setup() function.
2) base.py: here look at how BaseRowProxy is defined:
try:
from sqlalchemy.cresultproxy import BaseRowProxy
except ImportError:
class BaseRowProxy(object):
#....
So basically once C extensions are installed (using --with-cextensions flag during setup), the C implementation will be used. Otherwise, pure Python implementation of the class/function is used.