At the very beginning Python packaging world may seem too confusing. But only at first sight.<\/p>\n
There are a lot of different packages package formats<\/em>, libraries<\/em> and tools<\/em> for distributing and \u00a0packages management in Python world. There is also PyPI<\/a><\/strong> –<\/span> the Python Package Index is a repository of software for the Python.<\/p>\n Most often used formats<\/em> are tarbolls<\/strong> (tar.gz or zip files), eggs<\/strong> and system packages<\/strong> (like rpm, deb or other). Tarbolls are just source files archives. rpm or deb are binary files built with some system tools like rpmbuild. Eggs can \u00a0be thought of as a kind of zipped source code with some meta information (for instance, dependencies).<\/p>\n There are also various libraries<\/em>: distutils<\/strong>, setuptools<\/strong>, distribute <\/strong>and zc.buildout.<\/strong> distutils<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n It’s a built-in library. To distribute package developer need to write simple setup.py<\/em> file which will be used to built your package in various formats. \u00a0It’s definitely lacks some features but clean and easy to use. For instance, building RPM:<\/p>\n That is all.<\/p>\n setuptools<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n It is a third-party software based on distutils<\/em>. setuptools<\/em> was created to make Python packaging more powerful then it was\u00a0 possible with distutils<\/em> (for instance, dealing with dependencies).<\/p>\n Basic example of setup.py:<\/p>\n Like distutils,<\/em> setuptools<\/em> supports different formats (bdist_rpm, bdist_wininst, etc.). For a long time, setuptools<\/em> was widely used as one of the most popular packaging system. \u00a0For instance, redis-py<\/a> by Andy McCurdy uses<\/a> setuptools<\/em> and many others do.<\/p>\n distribute<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n It’s also a third-patty library and a fork of setuptools<\/em>. \u00a0It was born after setuptools<\/em> was not maintained for a long time. The main goal of distribute<\/em> is ‘to replace setuptools<\/em> as the standard method for working with Python module distributions.’ \u00a0It supports both Python 2 and Python 3. \u00a0distribute<\/em> is developing in two branches: 0.6.x (provides a setuptools-0.6cX compatible version and also fixes a lot of bugs which were not fixed in setuptools<\/em>) \u00a0and 0.7.x (will be refactored version with a lot of changes<\/a>).<\/p>\n zc.buildbot<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n Project was started by Jim Fulton in 2006 \u00a0and is based on setuptools<\/em> and easy_install<\/em>. It is possibly more complicated then others building systems but it’s also more ambitious. \u00a0Buildbot<\/em> uses additional configurations files (e.g., boostrap.py, \u00a0 bootstrap.cfg). It’s Python-based and works with eggs. Buildbot<\/em> also introduces concept of recipes <\/em>– <\/span><\/span>plugins which aim to add new functionalities to software building, like it’s stated<\/a> in official documentation. \u00a0Recipes\u00a0 can installed from PyPI. \u00a0It allows zc.buildbot<\/em> to extend possibilities since recipes can be used for different things, like setting up Apache<\/a> or managing Cron tasks<\/a> and so on. It’s also possible<\/a> to use pip<\/em> with buildbot<\/em>.<\/p>\n And finally, packages management tools<\/em>: easy_install <\/strong>and pip<\/strong>.<\/p>\n easy_install<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n It is a part of setuptools<\/em> and is a package manager. It’s really easy to install packages with it. It allows to download, build, install, and manage Python packages. It can also be used for installing packages in form of Eggs and packages from PyPI. easy_install <\/em>was a main tool for installing third-party packages before pip<\/em> was developed. On the dark side, it can’t be used for packages uninstalling. easy_install<\/em> will be deprecated in 0.7.x of distribute<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here is an example if package installation with easy_install<\/em>:<\/p>\n pip<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n It’s a tool for Python packages management created by Ian Bicking. Primary it’s used for installing and management packages from PyPI. Pip<\/em> is intended to replace easy_install<\/em> and contains extra features (e.g., unlikely easy_install<\/em> it can be used for uninstalling ). It can not be used for installing eggs but it seems it is not really a problem<\/a>. pip<\/em> uses setuptools<\/em> or distribute<\/em>. pip<\/em> will be automatically installed into each virtual environment created with virtualenv<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n Example of package installation with pip<\/em>: <\/span><\/p>\n One more important tool you should know about is a\u00a0virtualenv<\/a>. It’s widely used for creating isolated Python environments which can be useful in both production and development. We will cover it later.<\/span><\/p>\n At the time of writing (Aug 2011), \u00a0the most preferable way to install packages is pip<\/em>. And distribute<\/em> is for packaging. easy_install<\/em> and setuptool<\/em> can be considered as deprecated.<\/span><\/p>\n Now you can easily understand what co-creator of Django Jacob Kaplan-Moss meant<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n Python has one package distribution system: source files and setup.py install.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nSimple example of setup.py:<\/p>\nfrom distutils.core import setup\nsetup(name='foo',\nversion='1.0',\npy_modules=['foo'],\n)<\/pre>\n
python setup.py bdist_rpm<\/code><\/p>\nfrom setuptools import setup, find_packages setup( name = \"HelloWorld\", version = \"0.1\", packages = find_packages(), )<\/pre>\n
easy_install install foobar<\/code><\/p>\npip install foobar<\/code><\/p>\n
\nAnd easy_install.
\nPython has two package distribution systems: setup.py install and easy_install. And zc.buildout.
\nPython has three package distribution systems: setup.py install, easy_install, and zc.buildout. And pip.
\nAmongst Python\u2019s package distribution are such diverse elements as\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\nFuture reading<\/h2>\n
\n