Python Packaging

Rich Lewis

CMI Python Users Meeting, 16/11/2015

Packaging in General

  • Packaging is important for
    • code organisation
    • maintainability
    • distribution

Packaging in Python

  • Packaging is different for each programming language
  • This talk is only about Python
  • Terminology doesn't translate particularly well between languages (or even between versions of languages), so be careful!

distributions

projects

packages

modules

libraries

scripts

....

It's a mess.

But it's important.

Distributions

This is what people download

These are what you find on PyPI, e.g. scikit-learn

Modules 

How code is organised

import csv

csv is a module.

Packages

A 'higher level' module.

sklearn is a package.

from sklearn import preprocessing

Scripts

These are the raw source code.

In Python, every script is a module.

So how do you make these?

Scripts are easy!

Just write them. 

Modules are easy!

Modules are just scripts - anything in the global scope of the script is importable.

Packages are easy!

__init__.py

 

Its a directory (folder for the heathens) full of Python scripts (or modules) with...

Distributions

A little more involved - see Python Foundations Packaging Guide

You need to write a setup.py file, and use setuptools.

Demo...

Create a module with imports

Create a package which allows exports

Create a distribution

Python Packaging

By Rich Lewis

Python Packaging

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