python-clang conda package is not visible to pip as libclang

[peterbandi]

• I read the conda-forge documentation and could not find the solution for my problem there.

Issue:
I would like to install a package with pip in a conda environment that depends on the libclang PyPI package. If I understand it correctly the same package in conda on the conda-forge channel is called python-clang.

Other conda packages that has a corresponding PyPI package (possibly with a different name) show up in pip list output I think by creating a <name>-<version>.dist-info directory with appropriate content. This way pip can also be aware of the presence of the package and handle the dependencies. For example the python-flatbuffers conda package creates the lib/python3.9/site-packages/flatbuffers and lib/python3.9/site-packages/flatbuffers-2.0.dist-info directories where the latter contains the necessary information for pip so that it knows that the flatbuffers package is installed.

Please add this directory with the necessary information to the python-clang conda package (libclang-13.0.0.dist-info) so it would be visible with pip with the name libclang. Since pip does not now about the presence of this package at the moment, upon installing TensorFlow 2.7 that depends on the libclang PyPI package pip promptly overwrites the content of the python-clang conda package in lib/python3.9/site-packages/clang with the libclang PyPI package and messes with the list of installed conda package names by adding libclang that is a different package in conda.

Environment (conda list):

$ conda list
# packages in environment at /home/peter/miniconda3/envs/test:
#
# Name                    Version                   Build  Channel
_libgcc_mutex             0.1                 conda_forge    conda-forge
_openmp_mutex             4.5                      1_llvm    conda-forge
ca-certificates           2021.10.8            ha878542_0    conda-forge
certifi                   2021.10.8        py39hf3d152e_1    conda-forge
ld_impl_linux-64          2.35.1               h7274673_9
libclang                  13.0.0          default_hc23dcda_0    conda-forge
libffi                    3.3                  he6710b0_2
libgcc-ng                 11.2.0              h1d223b6_12    conda-forge
libllvm13                 13.0.0               hf817b99_0    conda-forge
libstdcxx-ng              11.2.0              he4da1e4_12    conda-forge
libzlib                   1.2.11            h36c2ea0_1013    conda-forge
llvm-openmp               12.0.1               h4bd325d_1    conda-forge
ncurses                   6.3                  h7f8727e_2
openssl                   1.1.1l               h7f98852_0    conda-forge
pip                       21.2.4           py39h06a4308_0
python                    3.9.7                h12debd9_1
python-clang              13.0.0          default_hccd1708_0    conda-forge
python_abi                3.9                      2_cp39    conda-forge
readline                  8.1.2                h7f8727e_1
setuptools                58.0.4           py39h06a4308_0
sqlite                    3.37.0               hc218d9a_0
tk                        8.6.11               h1ccaba5_0
tzdata                    2021e                hda174b7_0
wheel                     0.37.1             pyhd3eb1b0_0
xz                        5.2.5                h7b6447c_0
zlib                      1.2.11            h36c2ea0_1013    conda-forge

Details about conda and system ( conda info ):

$ conda info

     active environment : test
    active env location : /home/peter/miniconda3/envs/test
            shell level : 2
       user config file : /home/peter/.condarc
 populated config files :
          conda version : 4.11.0
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.9.5.final.0
       virtual packages : __cuda=11.6=0
                          __linux=5.10.60.1=0
                          __glibc=2.31=0
                          __unix=0=0
                          __archspec=1=x86_64
       base environment : /home/peter/miniconda3  (writable)
      conda av data dir : /home/peter/miniconda3/etc/conda
  conda av metadata url : None
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
          package cache : /home/peter/miniconda3/pkgs
                          /home/peter/.conda/pkgs
       envs directories : /home/peter/miniconda3/envs
                          /home/peter/.conda/envs
               platform : linux-64
             user-agent : conda/4.11.0 requests/2.27.1 CPython/3.9.5 Linux/5.10.60.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 ubuntu/20.04.3 glibc/2.31
                UID:GID : 1000:1000
             netrc file : None
           offline mode : False