iankelling.org Git - iankelling.org/blob - technical-notes/setup.py-uninstall.md

   1 ## Unix-like
   2
   3 Install over the existing installation with the same sources, recording installed files, then delete them.
   4
   5 ``` sh
   6 sudo python setup.py install --record files.txt
   7 # inspect files.txt to make sure it looks ok. Then in bash:
   8 tr '\n' '\0' < files.txt | xargs -0 sudo rm -f --
   9 ```
  10
  11 ## Windows
  12
  13 Install on top of the existing installation with a windows installer, then add-remove programs to uninstall.
  14
  15 ``` sh
  16 python setup.py bdist_wininst
  17 dist/foo-1.0.win32.exe
  18 ```
  19
  20 ## Use other methods which fully support uninstall when available
  21
  22 Uninstalling setup.py install has some *inherent problems*, which usually aren't a problem:
  23
  24 - Files which a different package also depends on will be removed by uninstall
  25 - Can't remove installed directories. --record only records non-directory files.
  26 - If a file is installed which includes a newline, the command this page
  27   recommends will fail. This won't happen except for a rare bug or a
  28   malicious program. We could overcome this by using bdist_dumb, then
  29   removing the files found in the archive which that command
  30   builds. However, I'm no more confident of that command not having a
  31   bug or edge case in which it would produce different files than a
  32   normal install than I am of a package having a file with a newline in
  33   it.
  34
  35 ### Alternatives
  36
  37 * pip
  38 * python setup.py install bdist_rpm
  39 * python setup.py bdist_wininst
  40 * [official python recommendations](https://packaging.python.org/)
  41
  42 This page is also at [stackoverflow answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/25209129/14456).
  43
  44 TODO: contribute this under https://wiki.python.org/moin/Distutils/Cookbook.