[Zope3-dev] Re: Newbie: what's up with all the '.in' files?

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

Richard Boyd wrote:
> I have downloaded the windows installer of Zope X3
> 
> I have manually run runzope.in (it won't run automatically as .in is not 
> recognised), I get:
> 
> Error: error opening file C:\Python23\zopeskel\etc\zope.conf: [Errno 2] 
> No such
> file or directory: 'C:\\Python23\\zopeskel\\etc\\zope.conf'
> For help, use runzope.in -h
> 
> I rename zope.conf.in to zope.conf, I get:
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>  File "runzope.in", line 42, in ?
>    run()
>  File "runzope.in", line 38, in run
>    main(["-C", CONFIG_FILE] + sys.argv[1:])
>  File "C:\Python23\Lib\site-packages\zope\app\server\main.py", line 53, 
> in main
>    setup(args)
> ....
> 
> I have look in the FAQ and the mailing list, and googled the website - 
> no luck.
> 
> I have gove into the CVS to check the filenames to see if there was an 
> error with the Windows installer - in is fine.
> 
> I would like to write an app in Zope3 with CA, but I can not even get it 
> started.
> 
> And please do not say "Install Linux on your employer's computer" ! :-)

You're missing an important concept, Zope instances. When you install 
Zope X3, it installs the software libraries and some skeleton files (the 
*.in files). You need to create an instance to actually run Zope. You 
can create as many instances from one Zoep installation as you want.

To create an instance, issue the following command:

   C:\Python23\python C:\Python23\scripts\mkzopeinstance
   ... enter some sane data ...

Then, in the directory you specified as the instance directory you'll 
see a proper directory structure with 'bin\runzope' as the script you 
can run:

   C:\Python23\python bin\runzope

The files in etc will also have no "*in" endings.

You should read up on instances in Stephan's book. I'm sure he covers 
them, though it might not be obvious to the newbie at first why and how 
to use them. (That you can read in my book starting January 2005 ;))

Philipp