--- a/paint/package.py	Fri Mar 30 15:10:49 2012 -0700
+++ b/paint/package.py	Fri Mar 30 15:46:37 2012 -0700
@@ -124,13 +124,21 @@
             raise AssertionError("%s does not exist" % setup_py)
 
         # setup the egg info
+        exception = None
         try:
-            call([sys.executable, 'setup.py', 'egg_info'], cwd=directory, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
-        except BaseException, e:
-            print "Failure to generate egg_info"
-            print ' - src: %s' % self.src
-            print ' - directory: %s' % directory
-            raise
+            code = call([sys.executable, 'setup.py', 'egg_info'], cwd=directory, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
+        except BaseException, exception:
+            pass
+        if code or exception:
+            message = """Failure to generate egg_info
+- src: %s
+- directory: %s
+""" % (self.src, directory)
+            if exception:
+                sys.stderr.write(message)
+                raise exception
+            else:
+                raise Exception(message)
 
         # get the .egg-info directory
         egg_info = [i for i in os.listdir(directory)
@@ -147,10 +155,17 @@
         """return info dictionary for package"""
         # could use pkginfo
 
-        egg_info = self._egg_info()
+        if self._pkg_info_path:
+            pkg_info = self._pkg_info_path
+        else:
+            try:
+                egg_info = self._egg_info()
+                pkg_info = os.path.join(egg_info, 'PKG-INFO')
+            except BaseException, exception:
+                # try to get the package info from a file
+                raise NotImplementedError("TODO: try to get the package info from a file")
 
         # read the package information
-        pkg_info = os.path.join(egg_info, 'PKG-INFO')
         info_dict = {}
         for line in file(pkg_info).readlines():
             if not line or line[0].isspace():