why do you need to delete bzrlib when installing

[John Arbash Meinel]

Martin Pool wrote:
> If I do
> 
>  python setup.py install --home ~
> 
> it ought to overwrite ~/lib/python/bzrlib, but it does not seem to do
> so.  I have seen John tell people they need to remove that directory
> first.  I thought this used to work... does anyone know what has
> changed in our setup.py or in Python so that it doesn't work anymore?
> 
> Maybe we should add an instruction to the install documentation?
> 

AFAIK it has never worked. Even for "python setup.py install" where you
install to the global directory.

It *sometimes* works when things haven't changed. But remember the bug
we had with 'xml.py'. Doing an install over the existing one, still left
xml.py (or maybe just xml.pyc?)

I think "python setup.py install" just copies files, but doesn't try to
remove anything that is already existing. So I think it just works "by
accident" most of the time.

We definitely should update INSTALL with information about this.

John
=:->