Cannot easily run from a script due to error handling

[kjwilcox]

I am using pipsi via an ansible script to install several packages. Because I don't necessarily know ahead of time what version (if any) of the packages are already there, I am running into issues with error detection and error handling.

pipsi install will exit with a 1 status code if there is an installation error or the package is already installed. I can't figure out a good way to distinguish these automatically (trying to scrape stderr/stdout seems really fragile).

pipsi upgrade will exit with a 1 status code if the package is not installed, or if it is already up-to-date.

In 99% of cases, I just don't care what the current state of the world is and want to end up with the latest version of the package installed.

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I'd really like to be able to run a single pipsi command and have it:

• Install the package if it's not installed already.
• Upgrade the package if it is installed but not up-to-date.
• Do nothing if the package is already installed and up-to-date.
• Exit with a 0 status code if there were no problems.

That might look like pipsi install mypackage --upgrade. Another option might be to change exit statuses (although that seems like a breaking change).

I'd be happy to submit a pull request for this if it's something you'd like to see added to pipsi.

[pjz]

I'm working on using pipsi to avoid dependency conflicts in production deploys of internal python projects, so need this same functionality. The return-value thing is severly hampering attempts to use it in an ansible script.

[pjz]

Proposed:

pipsi install returns:

• 0 on success
• 1 if already installed
• 2 or higher if other install error (passed through from pip?) pipsi upgrade should return:
• 0 on success (including already up to date)
• 1 if not installed
• 2 or higher if other install error (passed through from pip?)

I agree that there should be an install-or-upgrade-as-appropriate kind of command, though if we follow pips example, there would be a --upgrade flag to pipsi install that would do it. Alternately perhaps a --force or --installflag to pipsi upgrade would cause an install instead of failure if the package wasn't present. Another alternative would be to introduce a third command, perhaps something like pipsi latest <package>.

I'm neutral on which choice to make, just trying to lay out the options in hope of getting something done.

[RonnyPfannschmidt]

i like the proposal

[tiborsimon]

Just run into the same issue. Any updates on this proposal?

[cs01]

pipsi is effectively abandoned. For a project that is actively maintained and picks up where pipsi left off, check out https://github.com/pipxproject/pipx-app.