pybuild and setuptools_scm

[Paul Boddie <paul@boddie.org.uk>]

Hello,

I wonder if anyone can provide some advice about setuptools_scm interactions 
with pybuild.

I have been struggling to get some software packaged that relies on 
setuptools_scm. It seems to effectively ignore the package data section in a 
pyproject.toml file and to include a broader collection of files when being 
built using "python3 -m build".

(Obviously, such practices are less than helpful: why bother with declarations 
of packaged files if something is going to magically "discover" the files, 
anyway? Why use magical "do what I mean" tooling in the first place? That 
might be the more awkward question, I suppose.)

Since setuptools_scm is integrated into pyproject.toml so as to be invoked 
with the appropriate incantations present in that file, I assumed that pybuild 
might cause it to be invoked, too. However, what I see is that the files that 
should supposedly be included in the package are missing.

Running the command that pybuild invokes from within the source distribution 
for the software...

python3 -m build --skip-dependency-check --no-isolation --wheel --outdir dist

...yields a wheel with all the missing files. But when invoked by pybuild, 
itself invoked by gbp build-package, only the declared files seem to be 
included. I can obviously work around this by patching pyproject.toml, but 
upstream seems to be uninterested in supporting anyone not invoking the 
setuptools_scm magic.

I added python3-setuptools-scm to Build-Depends. Can anyone explain why this 
doesn't work?

Thanks in advance,

Paul