distutils package installation isn't compatible with IronPython.

To reproduce first install IronPython 2.6 (RC1 is currently latest
version) from the msi installer. This installs by default on Windows
into "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6" and includes a "site-packages"
folder in the "Lib" subfolder.

With the simplest Python package created with "python setup.py sdist"
(CPython) from the first example in the distutils documentation I get
the following on install:

C:\compile\test\foo-1.0>"C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\ipy.exe"
setup.py install
running install
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build\lib
copying foo.py -> build\lib
running install_lib
copying build\lib\foo.py -> C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\site-packages
error: C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\site-packages\foo.py: None

C:\compile\test\foo-1.0>dir "C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\site-packages"

 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is FC33-85DD

 Directory of C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\site-packages

06/10/2009  11:37    <DIR>          .
06/10/2009  11:37    <DIR>          ..
15/09/2009  08:53               121 README.txt
               1 File(s)            121 bytes
               2 Dir(s)  71,854,129,152 bytes free


See also the following bug report against IronPython on the codeplex
issue tracker. Here the distutils install fails in bytecode compilation. 

http://ironpython.codeplex.com/WorkItem/View.aspx?WorkItemId=24810

Bytecode compilation should not be attempted on IronPython as it does
not use Python bytecode. ( sys.dont_write_bytecode is True )

The fixes should be backported to Python 2.6 *if possible* as IronPython
2.6 uses the standard library from SVN and will pick up changes even
between releases.

Hmmm... ok, so I was running on Vista where a normal user can't create
files in the "Program Files" directory anyway. If I run with elevated
permissions then I get the same error as reported on the IronPython
issue on codeplex (which is probably what you will see if you try this
on Windows XP):

C:\compile\test\foo-1.0>"C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\ipy.exe"
setup.py install
running install
running build
running build_py
running install_lib
copying build\lib\foo.py -> C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\site-packages
byte-compiling C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\site-packages\foo.py
to foo.p
yc
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 2, in setup.py
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\core.py", line
152, in set
up
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\dist.py", line
975, in run
_commands
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\dist.py", line
995, in run
_command
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\distutils\command\install.py", line
589, in run
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\cmd.py", line 333,
in run_
command
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\dist.py", line
995, in run
_command
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\distutils\command\install_lib.py", l
ine 100, in run
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\distutils\command\install_lib.py", l
ine 134, in byte_compile
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\distutils\util.py", line
535, in byt
e_compile
  File "C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\py_compile.py", line 138, in
compile

ValueError: unmarshallable object
C:\compile\test\foo-1.0>

So there are two issues here - the terrible error message when an
install fails with an access denied error and the fact that distutils
attempts to compile bytecode under IronPython.

Notice that install_lib has a --no-compile option that can be used to
avoid compiling .pyc/.pyo files.

What I am adding now is just a gentle warning in case a compilation is
tried and sys.dont_write_bytecode is True, so the installation may
proceed nevertheless and it doesn't through an error.

For the 2.6 backport, it can be added in 2.6.5 I guess,

Done in trunk (r75669, and r75670 and r75671) and Py3k (r75704) and 3.1
(r75705). 

I'll push in 2.6 when the branch is unfrozen.

Michael, could you create another issue for the access rights problems ? 
It'll be easier to track.

Thanks!

This problem showed up when installing a package with IronPython, where
the site-packages folder requires admin privileges to write to (which
*should* be true with CPython Windows but isn't).

If you perform a 'python setup.py install' without admin privileges the
install fails (as it should) but with a very cryptic error message:

C:\compile\test\foo-1.0>"C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\ipy.exe"
setup.py install
running install
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build\lib
copying foo.py -> build\lib
running install_lib
copying build\lib\foo.py -> C:\Program Files\IronPython
2.6\Lib\site-packages
error: C:\Program Files\IronPython 2.6\Lib\site-packages\foo.py: None

Sorry - meant to create a new issue.

merged in 2.6 in r77376

I think this change was wrong.  Please see my rationale in http://bugs.python.org/issue12119.

(BTW, I’d be surprised if byte compilation was the only compat issue with distutils and IronPython.  For a start, sys.version[:3] is used to get the version number.  I should be able to get Mono and IronPython in a few weeks or months and see how much issues there are in distutils and distutils2.)