How to specify install order for python pip?

Question

I\'m working with fabric(0.9.4)+pip(0.8.2) and I need to install some python modules for multiple servers. All servers have old version of setuptools (0.6c8) which needs to

Answer 1

Pymongo requires setuptools>=0.6c9

How do you know? Requires to build or to install? You don't say what version of Pymongo you were trying to install but looking at setup.py file for current (3.2.2) version there's no specification of neither what Pymongo requires to run setup.py (setup_requires) nor what it requires to install (install_requires). With no such information pip can't ensure specific version of setuptools. If Pymongo requires specific version of setuptools to run its setup.py (as opposed to requiring setuptools to run setup function itself) then the other problem is that until recently there was no way to specify this. Now there's specification – PEP 518 – Specifying Minimum Build System Requirements for Python Projects, which should be shortly implemented in pip – Implement PEP 518 support #3691.

As to order of installation, this was fixed in pip 6.1.0;

From pip install – Installation Order section of pip's documentation:

As of v6.1.0, pip installs dependencies before their dependents, i.e. in "topological order". This is the only commitment pip currently makes related to order.

And later:

Prior to v6.1.0, pip made no commitments about install order.

However, without proper specification of requirements by Pymongo it won't help either.