Using use_scm_version write_to in setup.cfg

[smarie]

I love setuptools_scm, I use it in all my libs. I find the write_to option a great way to have the package find its own __version__, using the trick described here.

I adopted last year a practice to place most of the setup information in setup.cfg, it seems to work very well (following this great example)

Until now I was always still placing use_scm_version={"write_to": f"{name}/_version.py"} in the setup.py because it was not supported in setup.cfg. However the name had to be inserted in both files, which is not convenient (For example: here in setup.py and here in setup.cfg).

Digging aroung in the past issues and PR I found #364 and #181 So I thought that maybe the status had evolved now ? Can I now use

use_scm_version = 
    write_to = foo/_version.py

in setup.cfg ? If this is not the recommended way, let me know !
Thanks a lot

[smarie]

There may be a workaround: in setup.py it seems possible to use read_configuration to access information from the setup.cfg. So the setup.py can look like

from setuptools import setup
from setuptools.config import read_configuration

conf_dict = read_configuration("setup.cfg")
PKG_NAME = conf_dict['metadata']['name']

setup(
    use_scm_version={"write_to": f"{PKG_NAME}/_version.py"},
)

Therefore moving the use_scm_version statement in the other file is not really useful anymore.
I'm still wondering if there are alternatives or feedback on this approach.

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

use pyproject.toml setuptools will not natively support this and i won`t add a own parser in setuptools_scm

configuring setuptools_scm via pyproject.toml is supported since a while

[smarie]

So basically what you're saying is that I should place

[tool.setuptools_scm]
write_to = "pkg/_version.py"

in pyproject.toml.

Well this is great but that does not solve my problem :( since the pkg name has to be written twice: once here in the write_to contents, and once in setup.cfg (to fill the name metadata).

Maybe supporting a write_to=auto option, defaulting to <pkg>/_version.py, could do the trick ? Otherwise, supporting metadata variable names in write_to could be another, much more flexible workaround ? At least the package name is super useful.

Until such a solution is available, for those developers wishing to avoid entering the same folder name twice in two different configuration files, the workaround above seems to work. I tested it on https://github.com/smarie/python-genbadge and both in dev and release mode it works.

Thanks again @RonnyPfannschmidt !