/pyproject-structure-example

A personal attempt to systematize information on the structure of the Python project

OtherNOASSERTION

Example-python-project-structure

This is a simple example of the overall organization of a Python project based on best practices.

  • ./bin - directory for storing binary files and for keeping executable files, primarily.
    • don't give executables .py extension, even if they are Python source files.
    • don't put any code in them except an import of and call to a main function defined somewhere else in projects
    • other folders containing non-essential programs can be /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin etc
  • ./doc - package reference documentation
  • ./etc - non-Python files that are to be regarded as external to the project source files, but have to be initialized with some values when application starts running
  • ./lib - static-link libraries, used for building .dlls, C extensions
    • stored files which containing machine code that cannot be executed directly
  • ./project - the code of interest
    • application startup registered in one of the scripts
    • don't put source in a directory called src or lib, this makes it hard to run without installing
    • if project is expressable as a single Python source file, then put it into the directory and name it something related to your project: Project/project.py
  • ./project/test - package integration and unit tests
    • test directory in one of two places: under the package directory containing test code and resources or as a stand-alone top level directory
  • ./project/native - put non-Python sources such as C++ for pyd/so binary extension modules
  • ./data - may contain external data from third party sources, intermediate data, final processed data, original data and etc.
  • ./scripts - for that kind of command-line interface stuff
  • ./var - files that may be created or modified by the application during execution
  • .LICENSE - lawyering up
  • .Makefile - generic management tasks
  • .requirements.txt - development dependencies
  • .setup.py - package and distribution management
Project/
|-- bin/
|   |-- project
|
|-- doc/
|-- etc/
|-- lib/
|-- project/
|	|-- native/
|   |-- test/
|   |   |-- __init__.py
|   |   |-- test_main.py
|   |   
|   |-- __init__.py
|   |-- main.py
|
|-- data/
|-- scripts/
|-- var/
|-- .gitignore
|-- LICENSE
|-- Makefile
|-- README.me
|-- TODO.me
|-- requirments.txt
|-- setup.py