Using distutils to parse MANIFEST.in and grab files against the manifest

parse_manifest.py

# Adapted from https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/2.7/Lib/distutils/command/sdist.py#L386

from distutils.text_file import TextFile
from distutils.filelist import FileList

template = TextFile("MANIFEST.in", strip_comments=1, skip_blanks=1, join_lines=1, lstrip_ws=1, rstrip_ws=1, collapse_join=1)
filelist = FileList()

try:
  while True:
    line = template.readline()
    if line is None:
      break
    try:
      filelist.process_template_line(line)
    except:
      print "Crap, couldn't process line: %s" % line
finally:
  template.close()

# filelist.files now contains the files accepted by MANIFEST.in:
for file in filelist.files:
  print file