distribute (legacy wrapper)

0.7.3 verified Fri May 01 auth: no python deprecated

A legacy compatibility shim for distribute (the former fork of setuptools). It provides backported features and exists primarily for projects that have not migrated to setuptools. Current version 0.7.3 is very old; the package is effectively abandoned. New projects should use setuptools directly.

pip install distribute

Common errors

error ImportError: No module named distribute ↓

cause The 'distribute' package is not installed, but the code tries to import it directly.

fix

Install setuptools and use 'from setuptools import setup'.

error AttributeError: module 'distribute' has no attribute 'setup' ↓

cause The user imported distribute and tried to call distribute.setup().

fix

Use 'from setuptools import setup' and call 'setup()' directly.

Warnings

deprecated distribute is considered legacy and is no longer maintained. It has been merged back into setuptools. ↓

fix Replace 'distribute' dependency with 'setuptools'.

gotcha Importing 'distribute' does not provide a separate namespace; it re-exports setuptools. Users often mistakenly think distribute provides its own API. ↓

fix Use from setuptools import ... instead of import distribute.

Imports

setuptools
wrong
```
import distribute
```
correct
```
from setuptools import setup
```
distribute is a wrapper; the actual namespace is setuptools. Direct import of distribute is unnecessary.

Quickstart

Use setuptools directly. The distribute package is not needed.

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
    name='example',
    version='0.1',
    packages=find_packages(),
)