lukehuang/python-setup-cheat

Distutils, setuptools, distribute, etc. information and template.

TODO this is currently broken!

distutils, setuptools, distribute information and template.

This should be repository should be installable itself.

• add bin
• add modules

You need the files

• MANIFEST.txt
• CHANGES.txt

Or it won't work!

#Gemfile equivalent

To allow users who have downloaded the source to develop it, use a requirements.txt by selecting required output lines from:

pip freeze

And tell users to install with:

sudo pip install -r requirements.txt

#Which tool to use to distribute?

Python distribution is currently messy.

See:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6344076/differences-between-distribute-distutils-setuptools-and-distutils2
• http://python-notes.boredomandlaziness.org/en/latest/pep_ideas/core_packaging_api.html

Current best course of action for python only projects:

• use the non-stdlib distribute module to create packages.

  Note that the distribute base module is called setuptools because distribute is a fork of setuptools.

• host the packages on pypi: https://pypi.python.org/pypi

• end users can now use pip to install packages from PyPi very easily.

The best you can do with the stdlib is distutils, but this is worse than distribute.

#Distutils

The setup function will parse command line arguments which allow you to do tons of things from the command line.

##setup.cfg

You can set default options for the commands via the setup.cfg script

Example: bdist_rpm is a subcommand, that is you call it as:

python setup.py bdist_rpm

release, packager and doc_files are options:

python setup.py bdist_rpm --release r --packager p --doc_files a b c
python setup.py bdist_rpm --help

To set all the values add the following to setup.cfg:

[bdist_rpm]
release = 1
packager = Greg Ward <gward@python.net>
doc_files = CHANGES.txt
			README.txt
			USAGE.txt
			doc/
			examples/

##Install and uninstall

Basic install:

sudo python setup.py install

This:

• moves files to the correct install location

• overwrites any existing files updating them.

• creates a build dir in current dir which you should ignore in your gitignore

  It puts everythin in the right place inside this build dir:

  • python files are copyied
  • C/C++ extension .o and .so are put in there

however there is no automatic way to uninstall!!.... http://stackoverflow.com/questions/402359/how-do-you-uninstall-a-python-package-that-was-installed-using-distutils

You should use a package manger like pip for that TODO how:

The best you can currently do without a package manger is:

sudo python setup.py install --record record.txt

So that record.txt will contain the installed files, so to uninstall you can:

cat record.txt | xargs sudo rm -rf

Clearly a hack =)

##sdist

Create a source distribution: pack all the source code into a compressed file to give to someone else for them to build

python setup.py sdist

Not very useful since people should just use git or hg...

MANIFST.in files will also be included

##build_ext

Only build c/c++ extensions:

###inplace

This will place the compiled C/C++ outputs side by side with the python code in the repo, exactly where they need to be, without touching anything outside the repo:

python setup.py build_ext --inplace

Great for testing projects that contain C/C++ extensions without having to install every time before a test so that you can modify the python files directly.

#Distribute specific

##bdist

Built distribution:

• c/c++ extensions will be compiled
• could create distro specific distributions like rpm

##upload

Uploads to PyPi!

##develop

sudo python setup.py develop

Only installs executables in path, but keeps python modules in place so that you can edit them where they are for tests.

##test

TODO

##pkc_resource

Allows to get information about packages installed with distribute, and therefore if it was installed with pip this will work too.

Get package version:

import pkg_resources
pkg_resources.get_distribution("srtmerge").version

#egg

TODO what is