"pip wheel"

gistfile1.txt

Usage: pip wheel [OPTIONS] PACKAGE_NAMES...

Creates wheel archives from your requirements and place into ./wheels
(requires distribute>0.6.28 and wheel)

 -w --wheel-dir <DIR>  //alternative dir to place wheels into
 --force-rebuild               //rewrite existing wheels
 --unpack-only  <DIR>  //unpack to dir, for manual building with "setup.py bdist_wheel"
 -r, --requirement <FILENAME>
 -f, --find-links <URL>      
 -i, --index-url <URL>       
 --extra-index-url <URL>   
 --no-index              
 -M, --use-mirrors       
 --mirrors <URL>         
 --download-cache <DIR> 
 --no-deps     


why not other names?
  - "pip bdist --format=[wheel...]":  if wheel succeeds, would we seriously want to support any of the older forms?
  - "pip build ..." 
     - if the intention here is to just label wheel building as "build", IMHO that will create confusion.
     - if the intention is to do something much more elaborate, e.g also trying to break up the "setup.py install" step, that's too much IMHO

design:
   - you can't just inherit from commands.install, or you take on all install options.  that's too confusing
   - either inherit directly from pip.basecommand.command (and construct a RequirmentSet), 
     or possibly do some refactor and create a new ReqSet command base class, if it makes sense 
   - feel free to modify and *add* methods to InstallRequirement/RequirementSet.  
      (better to not make these enormously long methods any longer and complicated)

P.S. if the general "--package-cache" idea succeeds( https://gist.github.com/3828762), 
    then I could see coming back and offering a "--build-wheel" option to install that builds/writes 
    wheels to your package-cache if you're using one.


  

assume that the new pip wheel command will ignore whether or not the packages are already installed?

that's my intention

When a package needs custom build_ext options (usually -L or -I for external libraries) the current incantation is

I guess at least support an --unpack-only option (so you can manually do certain ones)?

Assuming you don't want to invent a more complex automatic method of passing arguments to setup.py

wasn't planning on it, but related to this, there is a pull to add --install-option support line by line in requirements, but it's stagnating. pypa/pip#515