Packaging

Basic Packaging

Add a file named setup.py to your project directory. Users can then install the package using

python setup.py install

from the command line.

This file contains metadata about the project. The simplest setup.py file possible is:

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
      name='mymodule',
      version='0.1',
      py_modules = ['ultimate_answer']
	  )

Example

Create a simple .py file called ultimate_answer.py that prints:

The answer to life the universe and everything is 42

print "The answer to life the universe and everything is 42"

• If we try to import this module from anywhere other than it’s directory, Python can’t find it.
• But if we add a setup.py file and use it to install the package, then it can be used from anywhere.

``` from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup( name=’ultimate_answer’, version=’0.1’, py_modules = [‘ultimate_answer’] )

Now run

python setup.py install

Setuptools

This works great for simple modules, but real modules have dependencies, and their modules have dependencies, and we’d have to install them all one at a time. Instead, we can automate this using our setup.py file.

Python keeps an online repository of packages and running easy_install or pip will search the repository for the package you want and install it automatically while handling any dependencies.

NEEDS EXAMPLE

Command line programs

We can make our Python programs run from anywhere on the command line with some relatively minor modifications to ultimate_answer.py:

def main():
    print "The answer to life the universe and everyting is 42"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

And setup.py:

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='ultimate_answer',
    version='0.1',
    py_modules = ['ultimate_answer'],
    entry_points={'console_scripts': ['ult_ans = ultimate_answer:main']})

Creating executable programs

We can also create versions of our programs that are self-contained executable programs.

Windows

1. Install the py2exe module
2. Run python setup.py install
3. Run python setup.py py2exe

This will create a .exe file that can be run on any Windows computer, no Python or modules required.

Example

1. Download pythonpy
2. Download setup2.py
3. Install

Package structure

package/
    __init__.py
    module1.py
    subpackage/
        __init__.py
        module2.py

import package.module1
from package.subpackage import module2
from package.subpackage.module2 import name