"pip wheel" needs to ignore distribute

[hjwp]

Let me know if it's too early to be submitting this sort of bug?

$ pip-3.3 wheel "pyramid"
Downloading/unpacking pyramid
  Running setup.py egg_info for package pyramid

Downloading/unpacking distribute (from pyramid)
  Downloading distribute-0.6.36.tar.gz (644kB): 644kB downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package distribute
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<string>", line 3, in <module>
      File "./setuptools/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
        from setuptools.extension import Extension, Library
      File "./setuptools/extension.py", line 5, in <module>
        from setuptools.dist import _get_unpatched
      File "./setuptools/dist.py", line 103
        except ValueError, e:
                         ^
    SyntaxError: invalid syntax
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<string>", line 3, in <module>

  File "./setuptools/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>

    from setuptools.extension import Extension, Library

  File "./setuptools/extension.py", line 5, in <module>

    from setuptools.dist import _get_unpatched

  File "./setuptools/dist.py", line 103

    except ValueError, e:

                     ^

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

----------------------------------------
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-build-root/distribute
Storing complete log in /root/.pip/pip.log

regular pip-3.3 install works fine

[hjwp]

virtualenvwrapper has a similar failure mode...

[dholth]

Long story but it's always been bad news when pip tries to upgrade its own dependency distribute, even worse when 2to3 is involved.

[qwcode]

@dholth , @pfmoore this is going to be a problem for people. I looked at this briefly. why is 2to3 (that normally occurs in the distribute setup.py import) not working before egg_info is run?

[pfmoore]

Why is it building distribute??? The problem is, and always has been, distribute's use of 2to3, which really doesn't work well in the context of pip needing a working distribute at the earliest stages. I don't really understand what;'s going on at all - but having said that, the merged setuptools (which won't use 2to3) may well fix this.

[qwcode]

pyramid declares a dependency on setuptools.
at one point, we had a skip baked into "pip wheel" for setuptools and distribute, but it got taken out.
I'll add it back in. agreed?

[pfmoore]

Ah, thanks for the explanation. Yes, I'd suggest putting it back in.

As a general principle, I would say pip should never manage setuptools or distribute (whether for wheel, or for install -U, or anything else) but that's a very hardcore stance and probably not practical.

We can revisit the question when the setuptools merge has happened, or when pip gets an internal copy of pkg_resources. Either of those may fix the issue.

[qwcode]

handled by #937