easy_install fails on error "Couldn't find setup script" after binary upload?

python binary easy-install python-c-extension
Michael picture Michael · May 30, 2011 · Viewed 21.5k times · Source

After uploading a binary distribution of my Python C extension with python setup.py bdist upload, easy_install [my-package-name] fails on "error: Couldn't find a setup script in /tmp/easy_install/package-name-etc-etc".

What am I doing wrong?

Answer

jarmod picture jarmod · Feb 3, 2013

This may not be related to your specific problem, but I am providing this information in case it is helpful to others.

I hit exactly this error when running easy_install xyz. The problem turned out to be that I had a subdirectory named xyz in the current working directory and easy_install was expecting to find a setup script locally in that subdirectory instead of going out to the web to get the real xyz. Renaming my local xyz directory temporarily fixed the problem.

This is one of a number of situations in which the command line argument you provide can be unintentionally shadowed by a file or folder of the same name. Another example is make: if you run make test in an attempt to make your test target and you happen to have a folder named test then make will not do what you want. The solution in that case is to indicate Phony Targets.

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