`packages_distributions` relies on setuptools implementation detail
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Assessment
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Newbie friendliness
- 68/100
- Issue type
- Documentation
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- documentation
Research direction
Start by reading the documentation for packages_distributions and the linked section of importlib_metadata/init.py. Update the documentation to explain that editable installs generally are not expected to provide top-level names, with setuptools as the historical exception, while noting the possible future impact of PEP 794.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
This is a follow-up to https://github.com/python/importlib_metadata/issues/402.
packages_distributions reads top_level.txt to determine the names. This file isn't part of any PEP and to my knowledge only implemented by setuptools, as a historical artifact from eggs. This leads users to believe that build backends not supporting this function have a bug (https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/issues/16423).
Would it be possible to update the documentation to accurately reflect that this is not a problem with some PEP 660 build backends not supplying top-level names, but that this function is generally not expected to work with editable installs at all, with the historical exception of setuptools?
(This may change with PEP 794)
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 142
- Forks
- 97
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Contributor guide
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First steps
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- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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