Distutils doesn't pick up files specified in setup.py that it knows
about.  For instance, files listed on the depends keyword of the
Extension class don't get included in a source distribution, or copied
to the build directory when building a binary distribution. The
data-files keyword to the setup function reportedly suffers the same
fate.

I don't think that's not depends keyword is used for.
I assume explanation on issue5158 is the way that "depends" is supposed
to be used.

Hello.

(If this comes out of the blue, since the bug was opened years ago, read http://bugs.python.org/issue1083299.)

Akira is right about “depends”. Regarding “data_files”, if they’re not picked up it’s a bug. Mike, can you still reproduce it with current Python versions?

Reference: http://docs.python.org/distutils/setupscript#installing-additional-files

(Not assigning this to Distutils2 since it will have a different behavior with respect to data files, and because it’s really a bug to fix in Distutils. There can’t be any tool that depends on this bug, right?)

Regards

@Éric can you please select the appropriate stage, component(s) or version(s) as you see fit, thanks.

Setting all three branches that accept bug fixes. Someone coming here thanks to the easy keyword could write a unit test, otherwise I’ll do it and adjust versions as needed.

There are tests for data_files, they are indeed included.  Please reopen if you can reproduce the bug.