Use pandoc to convert README.md into .rst for Pypi

setup_snippet.py

long_description = ''

try:
    import subprocess
    import pandoc

    process = subprocess.Popen(
        ['which pandoc'],
        shell=True,
        stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
        universal_newlines=True
    )

    pandoc_path = process.communicate()[0]
    pandoc_path = pandoc_path.strip('\n')

    pandoc.core.PANDOC_PATH = pandoc_path

    doc = pandoc.Document()
    doc.markdown = open('README.md').read()

    long_description = doc.rst

except:
    pass
  
# other params omitted for berevity
setup(
    long_description=long_description  
)

Here's what I ended up doing, since I know where pandoc is installed on my build system:

# README.md is used as the long description by default
ld_md                           = open('README.md').read()

try:
  import pandoc
  pandoc.core.PANDOC_PATH       = '/usr/bin/pandoc'

  # Here is a great place to fix anything in ld_md that breaks the conversion

  doc                           = pandoc.Document()
  doc.markdown                  = ld_md
  ld                            = doc.rst
except:
  ld                            = ld_md


setup(
  long_description              = ld,
)