Building Your Own Package¶

The very basics of what you need to know to make your own package.

Why Build a Package?¶

There are a bunch of nifty tools that help you build, install and distribute packages.

Using a well structured, standard layout for your package makes it easy to use those tools.

Even if you never want to give anyone else your code, a well structured package eases development.

What is a Package?¶

A collection of modules

... and the documentation
... and the tests
... and any top-level scripts
... and any data files required
... and a way to build and install it...

Python packaging tools:¶

The distutils:

from distutils.core import setup

Getting klunky, hard to extend, maybe destined for deprication...

But it gets the job done – and it does it well for the simple cases.

setuptools: for extra features

pip: for installing packages

wheel: for binary distributions

Where do I go to figure this out?¶

This is a really good guide:

Python Packaging User Guide:

https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/

Follow it!

And a sample project here:

https://github.com/pypa/sampleproject

(this has all the complexity you might need...)

Basic Package Structure:¶

package_name/
    bin/
    CHANGES.txt
    docs/
    LICENSE.txt
    MANIFEST.in
    README.txt
    setup.py
    package_name/
          __init__.py
          module1.py
          module2.py
          test/
              __init__.py
              test_module1.py
              test_module2.py

CHANGES.txt: log of changes with each release

LICENSE.txt: text of the license you choose (do choose one!)

MANIFEST.in: description of what non-code files to include

README.txt: description of the package – should be written in reST (for PyPi):

(http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html)

setup.py: distutils script for building/installing package.

bin/: This is where you put top-level scripts

( some folks use scripts )

docs/: the documentation

package_name/: The main pacakge – this is where the code goes.

test/: your unit tests. Options here:

Put it inside the package – supports

$ pip install package_name
>> import package_name.test
>> package_name.test.runall()

Or keep it at the top level.

The `setup.py` File¶

Your setup.py file is what describes your package, and tells the distutils how to pacakge, build and install it

It is python code, so you can add anything custom you need to it

But in the simple case, it is essentially declarative.

http://docs.python.org/3/distutils/

 from setuptools import setup

 setup(
   name='PackageName',
   version='0.1.0',
   author='An Awesome Coder',
   author_email='aac@example.com',
   packages=['package_name', 'package_name.test'],
   scripts=['bin/script1','bin/script2'],
   url='http://pypi.python.org/pypi/PackageName/',
   license='LICENSE.txt',
   description='An awesome package that does something',
   long_description=open('README.txt').read(),
   install_requires=[
       "Django >= 1.1.1",
       "pytest",
   ],
)

`setup.cfg`¶

setup.cfg provides a way to give the end user some ability to customise the install

It’s an ini style file:

[command]
option=value
...

simple to read and write.

command is one of the Distutils commands (e.g. build_py, install)

option is one of the options that command supports.

Note that an option spelled --foo-bar on the command-line is spelled f``foo_bar`` in configuration files.

Running `setup.py`¶

With a setup.py script defined, the distutils can do a lot:

builds a source distribution (defaults to tar file):

python setup.py sdist
python setup.py sdist --format=zip

builds binary distributions:

python setup.py bdist_rpm
python setup.py bdist_wininst

(other, more obscure ones, too....)

But you probably want to use wheel for binary disributions now.

build from source:
```
python setup.py build
```
and install:
```
python setup.py install
```

setuptools¶

setuptools is an extension to distutils that provides a number of extensions:

from setuptools import setup

superset of the distutils setup

This buys you a bunch of additional functionality:

auto-finding packages

better script installation

resource (non-code files) management

develop mode

a LOT more

http://pythonhosted.org//setuptools/

wheels¶

Wheels are a new binary format for packages.

http://wheel.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

Pretty simple, essentially an zip archive of all the stuff that gets put in

site-packages

Can be just pure python or binary with compiled extensions

Compatible with virtualenv.

Building a wheel:

python setup.py bdist_wheel

Create a set of wheels (a wheelhouse):

# Build a directory of wheels for pyramid and all its dependencies
pip wheel --wheel-dir=/tmp/wheelhouse pyramid

# Install from cached wheels
pip install --use-wheel --no-index --find-links=/tmp/wheelhouse pyramid

pip install packagename will find wheels for Windows and OS-X.

pip install --no-use-wheel avoids that.

PyPi¶

The Python package index:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi

You’ve all used this – pip install searches it.

To upload your package to PyPi:

python setup.py register

python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel upload

http://docs.python.org/2/distutils/packageindex.html

Under Development¶

Develop mode is really really nice:

python setup.py develop

or:

pip install -e ./

It puts links into the python installation to your code, so that your package is installed, but any changes will immediately take effect.

This way all your test code, and client code, etc, can all import your package the usual way.

No sys.path hacking

Good idea to use it for anything more than a single file project.

(requires setuptools)

Running tests¶

It can be a good idea to set up yoru tests to be run from setup.py

So that you (or your users) can:

$ pip install .
$ python setup.py test

Do do this, you need to add a test_suite stanza in setup.py.

nose

setup (
    # ...
    test_suite = 'nose.collector'
)

pytest

setup(
  #...,
  setup_requires=['pytest-runner', ...],
  tests_require=['pytest', ...],
  #...,
)

And create an alias into setup.cfg file:

[aliases]
test=pytest

https://pytest.org/latest/goodpractices.html#integrating-with-setuptools-python-setup-py-test-pytest-runner

unittest

test_suite="tests"

(does py3 unittest have this??)

Getting Started¶

For anything but a single-file script (and maybe even then):

Create the basic package structure
Write a setup.py
python -m pip install -e .
Put some tests in package/test
py.test or nosetests

LAB¶

Create a small package
- package structure
- setup.py
- python setup.py develop
- at least one working test
If you are ready – it can be the start of your project package.

(otherwise you may start with the silly code in Examples/capitalize)