Add option to ignore VCSError

While in development, I want o be able to run flit build before commiting and adding files to my github repo.

if I do that I get

$ flit build
flit.common.VCSError: Untracked or deleted files in the source directory. Commit, undo or ignore these files in your VCS. (.)

I want to be able to do:

$ flit build dev
#or
$ flit build --novcs

So I can test my builds before commiting

[miccoli]

I understand the flit approach this way:

• use the index to decide what has to be included in sdist, but build against the working tree.

With respect to this approach we have three different cases

1. files in the index but missing in the working tree. This is an error, since I’m instructing flit to add to the sdist a non-existing file.

2. files in the working tree but not in the index. This should be a warning, and those files should not be included in the sdist

3. files in the working tree modified with respect to the index. This should be a warning, since I’m building (and possibly publishing) a version which is not yet consolidated under VCS.

Currently for flit, 1. and 2. are an error and 3. is ignored.

My suggestion: make 2, and 3 warnings, and add a way for silencing them, something like export FLITVCSUNTRACKED=ignore and export FLITVCSMODIFIED=ignore, on the line of PYTHONWARNINGS

Finally, regarding your suggestion about a scratch directory: I think that it is a bit intrusive from flit to dictate how I should organise my working tree, and where and when I have to put/commit my files. If my VCS hygiene is not up to the flit standard, I would kindly accept a suggestion (i.e. a warning) but the fact that flit refuses to work, without a compelling reason, in my personal setup, is a great annoyance.

But again, this is just my personal view, so thank you for your comments.

[takluyver]

By default, the source dist includes everything that’s tracked in your VCS under the folder containing pyproject.toml. So it gives this error because it doesn’t know whether the files should be included in the sdist or not.

Since Flit 2, you can include & exclude files in the config file (https://flit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pyproject_toml.html#sdist-section ). So you could have a scratch/ subfolder and put it in the exclude list. But you could also add it to .gitignore, which should have the same result.