updating mechanize - help concerning tests with pybuild

[Norbert Preining]

Dear all,

here are two questions: one concerning adopting/updating mechanize and
how to deal with rdepends, one concerning how to fix tests with special
requirements in pybuild.

For calibre and porting to python3, I need mechanize for python3.
The current version of python-mechanize is from 2012 and version 0.2.5,
while the latest version is 0.4.3 from a few days ago.

The recent versions support python3, so I would like to update
mechanize.

I checked the rdepends of python-mechanize:
  python-twill
  zope2.13
  python-zope.testbrowser
  calibre
  python-clientform

zope2.13 is very old, removed from testing, unmaintained
python-zope.testbrowser the same
python-clientform is a transitional package build from mechanize
python-twill has a last upload in 2016, but is lagging behind badly
(current version 1.8 on pypi)
calibre needs an updated mechanize.

So I think it would be fine to simply update mechanize without too much
troubles.

The current maintainers/uploaders are
Maintainer: Debian/Ubuntu Zope Team <pkg-zope-developers at lists.alioth.debian.org>
Uploaders: Brian Sutherland <brian at vanguardistas.net>,
           Fabio Tranchitella <kobold at debian.org>,
           Jérémy Bobbio <lunar at debian.org>,
           Matthias Klose <doko at ubuntu.com>,
           Arnaud Fontaine <arnau at debian.org>
(In CC, but Brian removed, he already declared he does not want to
maintain the package anymore, see bug #869439)

I would be interested in adopting mechanize if the current maintainers
/ uploaders are fine with it. Or we put it into the python modules team
and I do the stuff there. All is fine for me.

How could be proceed here?

---------------

Now for the pybuild question:

Current mechanize needs to set up a special environment for the tests.
There is a dedicated script
	run_tests.py
that would do the trick. I tried to use the pybuild before tests feature
to export PYTHONPATH, but that didn't work.

Is there a way to run a specific script instead of the built-in tests of
pybuild?

I thought about using PYTHON_DISABLE=tests and add a specific dh test
target. WDYT?

Thanks for any hints!

All the best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                               http://www.preining.info
Accelia Inc. + IFMGA ProGuide + TU Wien + JAIST + TeX Live + Debian Dev
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