[BUG] Cannot specify build directory in bdist_wheel

setuptools version

72.1.0

Python version

3.9

OS

Linux

Additional environment information

No response

Description

To ensure clean builds, we want to build python modules with a fresh build directory:

$ python3 setup.py build -b /a/fresh/directory

However, we can't then use this build tree with bdist_wheel as there's no option to specify where the build tree is when using --skip-build:

$ python3 ./setup.py bdist_wheel -b /a/fresh/directory --skip-build
running bdist_wheel
installing to /a/fresh/directory
running install
running install_lib
warning: install_lib: 'build/lib' does not exist -- no Python modules to install

Yes I know invoking setup.py is deprecated but there's no way to pass -j to build...

Expected behavior

bdist_wheel has an option to tell is where the build tree is.

How to Reproduce

$ python3 setup.py build -b /a/fresh/directory
$ python3 setup.py bdist_wheel -b /a/fresh/directory

Output

warning: install_lib: 'build/lib' does not exist -- no Python modules to install

Start by reproducing the two setup.py commands in the issue and inspect the bdist_wheel handling of the -b and --skip-build options. Trace how the build directory is passed to the install step; done means a wheel built with --skip-build uses the specified fresh directory and no longer warns that build/lib is missing.