"IOError: No egg-info directory found" with paster on Plone 4.3.3

Question

The error occurs also when using zopeskel in Plone 4.3.3. This seem to be slightly different from this question. Under Plone 4.3.2 there is no error.

$ ../bin/paster create plone_basic
Selected and implied templates:
  PasteScript#basic_package  A basic setuptools-enabled package

Variables:
  egg:      plone_basic
  package:  plone_basic
  project:  plone_basic
Enter version (Version (like 0.1)) ['']:
Enter description (One-line description of the package) ['']:
Enter long_description (Multi-line description (in reST)) ['']:
Enter keywords (Space-separated keywords/tags) ['']:
Enter author (Author name) ['']:
Enter author_email (Author email) ['']:
Enter url (URL of homepage) ['']:
Enter license_name (License name) ['']:
Enter zip_safe (True/False: if the package can be distributed as a .zip file) [False]:
Creating template basic_package
Creating directory ./plone_basic
  Recursing into +package+
    Creating ./plone_basic/plone_basic/
    Copying __init__.py to ./plone_basic/plone_basic/__init__.py
  Copying setup.cfg to ./plone_basic/setup.cfg
  Copying setup.py_tmpl to ./plone_basic/setup.py
Running /home/Plone-4.3.3/Python-2.7/bin/python setup.py egg_info
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/zeocluster/bin/paster", line 259, in <module>
    sys.exit(paste.script.command.run())
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/command.py", line 104, in run
    invoke(command, command_name, options, args[1:])
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/command.py", line 143, in invoke
    exit_code = runner.run(args)
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/command.py", line 238, in run
    result = self.command()
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/create_distro.py", line 170, in command
    egg_info_dir = pluginlib.egg_info_dir(output_dir, dist_name)
  File "/home/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/pluginlib.py", line 135, in egg_info_dir
    % ', '.join(all))
IOError: No egg-info directory found (looked in ./plone_basic/./plone_basic.egg-info, ./plone_basic/setup.py/plone_basic.egg-info, ./plone_basic/plone_basic/plone_basic.egg-info, ./plone_basic/setup.cfg/plone_basic.egg-info)

Answer 1

workaround 1:

The problem seems to be the missing setuptools. After installing setuptools, then paster (and all tools based on it) can run the generated setup.py. The following fixed the problem:

wget --no-check-certificate https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py -O - | sudo -u plone_buildout /usr/local/Plone-4.3.3/Python-2.7/bin/python

UnifiedInstaller-4.3.3 doesn't install setuptools. See this ticket.

As SteveM points out (see comments) this is not a recommended workaround.

(prefered) workaround 2:

The generated data is there (despite the thrown error!) but setup.py will not run. Thus the Paste* directories will not be generated. Later when buildout runs it will generate/download the Paste* directories etc.

If you want setup.py to be run. You could patch PasteScript (at your own risk!).

As for PasteScript-1.7.5 go to line #587 of /path/to/Plone-4.3.3/buildout-cache/eggs/PasteScript-1.7.5-py2.7.egg/paste/script/command.py and get the current sys.path and pass it to subprocess.Popen(). This way the setup.py will run with the zopeskel or paste environment.

current_env = os.environ.copy()
current_env['PYTHONPATH'] = ':'.join(sys.path)
proc = subprocess.Popen([cmd] + list(args),
                        cwd=cwd,
                        stderr=stderr_pipe,
                        stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                        env=current_env) # <- pass the env here

I'll try to figure out situations where this workaround could cause problems. I've posted an issue on PasteScript: https://bitbucket.org/ianb/pastescript/issue/16/pass-the-syspath-to-the-subprocess-in

Update: without generating/adding the Paste* dirs (either running buildout or by workaround as above) localcommands won't be available.