Making a Python Package

Specifying how to build your python package

Python Packages

What is a “package” in Python ?

Packages, modules, imports, oh my!

Modules

A python “module” is a single namespace, with a collection of values:

  • functions

  • constants

  • class definitions

  • really any old value.

A module usually corresponds to a single file: something.py

Packages

A “package” is essentially a module, except it can have other modules (and indeed other packages) inside it.

A package usually corresponds to a directory with a file in it called __init__.py and any number of python files or other package directories:

a_package
   __init__.py
   module_a.py
   a_sub_package
     __init__.py
     module_b.py

The __init__.py can be totally empty – or it can have arbitrary python code in it.

The code will be run when the package is imported – just like a module,

modules inside packages are not automatically imported. So, with the above structure:

import a_package

will run the code in a_package/__init__.py.

Any names defined in the __init__.py will be available in:

a_package.a_name

but:

a_package.module_a

will not exist. To get submodules, you need to explicitly import them:

import a_package.module_a

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/modules.html#packages

The module search path

The interpreter keeps a list of all the places that it looks for modules or packages when you do an import:

import sys
for p in sys.path:
    print p

You can manipulate that list to add or remove paths to let python find modules on a new place.

And every module has a __file__ name that points to the path it lives in. This lets you add paths relative to where you are, etc.

NOTE: it’s usually better to use setuptools’ “develop” mode instead – see below.

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 simplifies 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:

distutils: included with python

from distutils.core import setup

Getting clunky, hard to extend, maybe destined for deprecation …

setuptools: for extra features, technically third party

  • present in most modern Python installations

“The Python Packaging Authority” – PyPA

https://www.pypa.io/en/latest/

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/

Where do I go to figure this out?

This is a really good guide:

Python Packaging User Guide:

https://packaging.python.org/

and a more detailed tutorial:

http://python-packaging.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Follow one of them

There is a sample project here:

https://github.com/pypa/sampleproject

(this has all the complexity you might need…)

You can use this as a template for your own packages.

Here is an opinionated update – a little more fancy, but some good ideas:

https://blog.ionelmc.ro/2014/05/25/python-packaging/

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 or Markdown (for PyPi):

setup.py: the 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 package – 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.

Some notes on that:

` Where to put Tests <http://pythonchb.github.io/PythonTopics/where_to_put_tests.html>`_

The setup.py File

Your setup.py file is what describes your package, and tells setuptools how to package, 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/

What Does setup.py Do?

  • Version & package metadata

  • List of packages to include

  • List of other files to include

  • List of dependencies

  • List of extensions to be compiled (if you are not using scikit-build.

An example setup.py:

 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

Provides a way to give the end user some ability to customize 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 foo_bar in configuration files.

Running setup.py

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

Builds a source distribution (a tar archive of all the files needed to build and install the package):

python setup.py sdist

Builds wheels:

./setup.py bdist_wheel

(you need the wheel package for this to work:)

pip install wheel

Build from source:

python setup.py build

And install:

python setup.py install

Develop mode

Install in “develop” or “editable” mode:

python setup.py develop

or:

pip install .

Under Development

Develop mode is really, really nice:

$ python setup.py develop

or:

$ pip install -e ./

(the e stands for “editable” – it is the same thing)

It puts a link (actually *.pth files) 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.

Install

Development Install

Copies package into site-packages

Adds a .pth file to site-packages, pointed at package source root

Used when creating conda packages

Used when developing software locally

Normal priority in sys.path

End of sys.path (only found if nothing else comes first)

https://grahamwideman.wikispaces.com/Python-+site-package+dirs+and+.pth+files

Aside on pip and dependencies

  • pip does not currently have a solver: http://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/988

  • pip may replace packages in your environment with incompatible versions. Things will break when that happens.

  • use caution (and ideally, disposable environments) when using pip

Getting Started With a New Package

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

  1. Create the basic package structure

  2. Write a setup.py

  3. pip install -e .

  4. Put some tests in package/test

  5. pytest in the test dir, or pytest --pyargs package_name

or use “Cookie Cutter”:

https://cookiecutter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Exercise: A Small Example Package

  • Create a small package

    • package structure

    • setup.py

    • python setup.py develop

    • at least one working test

Start with the silly code in the tutorial repo in:

python-packaging-tutorial/setup_example/

or you can download a zip file here:

capitalize.zip

capitalize

capitalize is a useless little utility that will capitalize the words in a text file.

But it has the core structure of a python package:

  • a library of “logic code”

  • a command line script

  • a data file

  • tests

So let’s see what’s in there:

$ ls
capital_mod.py           test_capital_mod.py
cap_data.txt             main.py
cap_script.py            sample_text_file.txt

What are these files?

capital_mod.py

The core logic code

main.py

The command line app

test_capital_mod.py

Test code for the logic

cap_script.py

top-level script

cap_data.txt

data file

sample_text_file.txt

sample example file to test with.

Try it out:

$ cd capitalize/

$ python3 cap_script.py sample_text_file.txt

Capitalizing: sample_text_file.txt and storing it in
sample_text_file_cap.txt

I'm done

So it works, as long as you are in the directory with all the code.

Setting up a package structure

Create a basic package structure:

package_name/
    bin/
    README.txt
    setup.py
    package_name/
          __init__.py
          module1.py
          test/
              __init__.py
              test_module1.py

Let’s create all that for capitalize:

Make the package:

$ mkdir capitalize

$ cd capitalize/

$ touch __init__.py

Move the code into it:

    $ mv ../capital_mod.py ./
$ mv ../main.py ./

Create a dir for the tests:

$ mkdir test

Move the tests into that:

$ mv ../test_capital_mod.py test/

Create a dir for the script:

$ mkdir bin

Move the script into that:

$ mv ../cap_script.py bin

Create directory for data:

$ mkdir data

Move data into that:

$ mv ../cap_data.txt data

Now we have a package!

Let’s try it:

$ python bin/cap_script.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "bin/cap_script.py", line 8, in <module>
    import capital_mod
ImportError: No module named capital_mod

OK, that didn’t work. Why not?

Well, we’ve moved everytihng around:

The modules don’t know how to find each other.

Let’s Write a setup.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='capitalize',
      version='1.0',
      # list folders, not files
      packages=['capitalize',
                'capitalize.test'],
      scripts=['capitalize/bin/cap_script.py'],
      package_data={'capitalize': ['data/cap_data.txt']},
      )

(remember that a “package” is a folder with a __init__.py__ file)

That’s about the minimum you can do.

Save it as setup.py outside the capitalize package dir.

Install it in “editable” mode:

$ pip install -e ./
Obtaining file:///Users/chris.barker/HAZMAT/Conferences/SciPy-2018/PackagingTutorial/TutorialDay/capitalize
Installing collected packages: capitalize
  Running setup.py develop for capitalize
Successfully installed capitalize

Try it out:

$ cap_script.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/chris.barker/miniconda2/envs/py3/bin/cap_script.py", line 6, in <module>
    exec(compile(open(__file__).read(), __file__, 'exec'))
  File "/Users/chris.barker/HAZMAT/Conferences/SciPy-2018/PackagingTutorial/TutorialDay/capitalize/capitalize/bin/cap_script.py", line 8, in <module>
    import capital_mod
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'capital_mod'

Still didn’t work – why not?

We need to update some imports.

in cap_script.py:

import main
import capital_mod

should be:

from capitalize import main
from capitalize import capital_mod

and similarly in main.py:

from capitalize import capital_mod

And try it:

$ cap_script.py sample_text_file.txt

      Traceback (most recent call last):
File ".../cap_script.py", line 6, in <module>
  exec(compile(open(__file__).read(), __file__, 'exec'))
File ".../cap_script.py", line 8, in <module>
  from capitalize import capital_mod
File "/.../capital_mod.py", line 35, in <module>
  special_words = load_special_words(get_datafile_name())
File ".../capital_mod.py", line 21, in load_special_words
  with open(data_file_name) as data_file:
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '.../capitalize/cap_data.txt'

Our script cannot find the data file. We changed it’s location but not the path in the capital_mod.py.

Let’s fix this. On line 32 replace:

return Path(__file__).parent / "cap_data.txt"

with:

return Path(__file__).parent / "data/cap_data.txt"

Running the tests:

Option 1: cd to the test dir:

$ cd capitalize/test/

$ pytest
$ ===================================
  test session starts
  ====================================
...

Traceback:
test_capital_mod.py:14: in <module>
    import capital_mod
E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'capital_mod'

Whoops – we need to fix that import, too:

from capitalize import capital_mod

And now we’re good:

$ pytest
======test session starts =====

collected 3 items

test_capital_mod.py ...

============== 3 passed in 0.06 seconds ============

You can also run the tests from anywhere on the command line:

$ pytest --pyargs capitalize

    collected 3 items

    capitalize/capitalize/test/test_capital_mod.py ...                                   [100%]

    =============== 3 passed in 0.03 seconds ==========

Making Packages the Easy Way

To auto-build a full package structure:


_images/cookiecutter.png

Rather than doing it by hand, you can use the nifty “cookie cutter” project:

https://cookiecutter.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

And there are a few templates that can be used with that.

The core template written by the author:

https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage

And one written by the author of the opinionated blog post above:

https://github.com/ionelmc/cookiecutter-pylibrary

Either are great starting points.

conda install -c conda-forge cookiecutter

or

pip install  cookiecutter

No time for that now :-(

Handling Requirements

Only the simplest of packages need only the Python standard library.

Requirements in setup.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
from distutils.core import setup

setup(name='mypkg',
      version='1.0',
      # list folders, not files
      packages=['mypkg', 'mypkg.subpkg'],
      install_requires=['click'],
      )

Requirements in requirements.txt

Common Mistake:

  • requirements.txt often from pip freeze

  • Pinned way too tightly. OK for env creation, bad for packaging.


Requirements in setup.cfg (ideal)

[metadata]
name = my_package
version = attr:
src.VERSION

[options]
packages = find:
install_requires = click

Parse-able without execution, unlike setup.py

configuring setup using setup cfg files

Break time!

Up next: producing redistributable artifacts