Buildout ignoring github `find-links` reference

Question

I'm trying to get buildout to use a specific, forked & tweaked package from my github account, however it seems to be completely ignoring the reference and instead opting for the standard PyPi module.

Here's my buildout config:

[buildout]
parts = foo
find-links = http://github.com/me/themodule/tarball/version#egg=themodule-version
versions = versions
eggs = ...

[versions]
themodule=version

[foo]
eggs =
    ${buildout:eggs}
    themodule

I'm using the latest zc.buildout from pypi, version 1.5.2.

I've tried with both http and https for the link (because of the recent github change). The link is active and works directly, so I'm guessing it's my configuration. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

Make sure your version number is unique; if you use the same version number in your find-links URL as the package listed on PyPI, setuptools will happily grab the one found on PyPI instead of the one indicated by find-links.

We use a {company}{counter} pattern for private modifications, so a version 1.2.5 repackaged with our changes becomes 1.2.5acme1. Later revisions then update the counter (acme2, acme3, etc.) until the forked-package version itself changes. It may well be necessary to set this in setup.py as well as other tools may be querying the package itself for it's version.