How do I forbid easy_install from zipping eggs?

Question

What must I put into distutils.cfg to prevent easy_install from ever installing a zipped egg? The compression is a nice thought, but I like to be able to grep through and debug that code.

I pulled in some dependencies with python setup.py develop . A closer look reveals that also accepts the --always-unzip flag. It would just be nice to set that as default.

Answer 1

the option is zip-ok, so put the following in your distutils.cfg:

[easy_install]

# i don't like having zipped files.
zip_ok = 0

Answer 2

I doubt there is a setting in distutils.cfg for this, as easy_install is not a part of distutils. But run easy_install like this:

easy_install --always-unzip

and it should solve the problem.