How to instrument setup.py to use wheel packages

Question

In my setup.py I have a dependency for numpy (in install_requires).

Is it possible to instrument the setup function to use wheel packages rather then source ones and not compile the whole numpy?

Note: When I do pip install numpy it downloads the binary package of numpy. However python setup.py install gets the source package.

What kind of *instrumenting* do you have in mind? `setuptools.setup()` does not support wheels (see https://packaging.python.org/pip_easy_install/#pip-vs-easy-install). — Leon, Feb 16 '17 at 17:10
I want to use wheels when running `python setup.py install`. So I guess there is no option for that? — Robert Zaremba, Feb 16 '17 at 18:51
Could you make an answer, so I can mark this question as answered? — Robert Zaremba, Feb 17 '17 at 20:41

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 18 '17 at 06:43

The wheel package was introduced with the purpose of fixing the problems with source distributions that were used by setuptools. Although setuptools had their own Egg format for built distributions that predated wheel by 8 years, wheel is currently considered the standard for built and binary packaging for Python. As of today, setuptools don't yet support the wheel format.

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