Do I need *.egg-info directories when using setuptools/distribute to create a python package

Question

I have a "standard" python package layout like this:

• setup.py - using setuptools
• README
• src/moduleA
• test/

However, when I execute setup.py it decides to create the directory src/moduleA.egg-info.

The question is, do I need to worry about the contents of this directory and check it in with the rest of my code, or should I just rely on setuptools/distribute to regenerate it? It seems that all the information in the .egg-info directory comes from the config in setup.py anyway.

Answer 1

The automatically generated bits don't need to be checked in, unless you're actually extending setuptools itself as part of your build process.

However, if you're putting files of your own in .egg-info (like i18n resources for EggTranslations), then those should definitely be checked in, since setuptools obviously isn't going to be able to regenerate them for you. ;-)