auto-clean to prevent pip can't proceed with requirement 'xxx' due to a pre-existing build directory.

[ssbarnea]

I seems that I am seeing the famous message more often then ever:

pip can't proceed with requirement 'xxx' due to a pre-existing build directory.

Can we use pip in such way that if the package installation fails I do not have to manually remove the random-generated temp directory?
Just exemplify the extend of the problem try this:

pip install --target=/tmp/xxx  module
pip install --target=/tmp/yyy module

Second command will fail for sure because of the already existing due to "due to a pre-existing build directory."

Does it makes sense? For me not at all.

[ssbarnea]

Can someone take a look at this? Requirement management with pip became impossible to deal with.
I cannot run any of these more than once:

pip install -r requirements.txt
pip2.6 install -r requirements.txt
pip2.7 install -r requirements.txt
pip3.4 install -r requirements.txt
``
Machine: OS X 10.9

[Ivoz]

What version of pip are you using? This worked ok for me.

[py26] C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\t\ve>pip install --target t initools
Downloading/unpacking initools
  Downloading INITools-0.3.1.tar.gz
  Running setup.py (path:c:\users\matthew\appdata\local\temp\pip_build_Matthew\initools\setup.py) egg_info for package initools
Installing collected packages: initools
  Running setup.py install for initools
    SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('c:\\users\\matthew\\appdata\\local\\temp\\tmpdpnjab\\lib\\python\\initools\\lazyloader.py', 190, 20, '                elif
 isinstance(item, Item):\n'))

Successfully installed initools
Cleaning up...

[py26] C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\t\ve>pip install --target t initools
Downloading/unpacking initools
  Downloading INITools-0.3.1.tar.gz
  Running setup.py (path:c:\users\matthew\appdata\local\temp\pip_build_Matthew\initools\setup.py) egg_info for package initools
Installing collected packages: initools
  Running setup.py install for initools
    SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('c:\\users\\matthew\\appdata\\local\\temp\\tmp2eawmd\\lib\\python\\initools\\lazyloader.py', 190, 20, '                elif
 isinstance(item, Item):\n'))

Successfully installed initools
Cleaning up...

[py26] C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\t\ve>

[ssbarnea]

pip 1.5.6 from /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/pip-1.5.6-py2.6.egg (python 2.6)

and the command failing is
pip install --user --upgrade -r requirements.txt

[ssbarnea]

This is marked as closed by #2122 but that issue is not fixed itself which means that this should still be open.

[dstufft]

Using what version of pip?