setup.py examples?

Solution 1:

Complete walkthrough of writing setup.py scripts here. (with some examples)

If you'd like a real-world example, I could point you towards the setup.py scripts of a couple major projects. Django's is here, pyglet's is here. You can just browse the source of other projects for a file named setup.py for more examples.

These aren't simple examples; the tutorial link I gave has those. These are more complex, but also more practical.

Solution 2:

You may find the HitchHiker's Guide to Packaging helpful, even though it is incomplete. I'd start with the Quick Start tutorial. Try also just browsing through Python packages on the Python Package Index. Just download the tarball, unpack it, and have a look at the setup.py file. Or even better, only bother looking through packages that list a public source code repository such as one hosted on GitHub or BitBucket. You're bound to run into one on the front page.

My final suggestion is to just go for it and try making one; don't be afraid to fail. I really didn't understand it until I started making them myself. It's trivial to create a new package on PyPI and just as easy to remove it. So, create a dummy package and play around.

Solution 3:

READ THIS FIRST https://packaging.python.org/en/latest/current.html

Installation Tool Recommendations

1. Use pip to install Python packages from PyPI.
2. Use virtualenv, or pyvenv to isolate application specific dependencies from a shared Python installation.
3. Use pip wheel to create a cache of wheel distributions, for the purpose of > speeding up subsequent installations.
4. If you’re looking for management of fully integrated cross-platform software stacks, consider buildout (primarily focused on the web development community) or Hashdist, or conda (both primarily focused on the scientific community).

Packaging Tool Recommendations

1. Use setuptools to define projects and create Source Distributions.
2. Use the bdist_wheel setuptools extension available from the wheel project to create wheels. This is especially beneficial, if your project contains binary extensions.
3. Use twine for uploading distributions to PyPI.

This anwser has aged, and indeed there is a rescue plan for python packaging world called

wheels way

I qoute pythonwheels.com here:

What are wheels?

Wheels are the new standard of python distribution and are intended to replace eggs. Support is offered in pip >= 1.4 and setuptools >= 0.8.

Advantages of wheels

1. Faster installation for pure python and native C extension packages.
2. Avoids arbitrary code execution for installation. (Avoids setup.py)
3. Installation of a C extension does not require a compiler on Windows or OS X.
4. Allows better caching for testing and continuous integration.
5. Creates .pyc files as part of installation to ensure they match the python interpreter used.
6. More consistent installs across platforms and machines.

The full story of correct python packaging (and about wheels) is covered at packaging.python.org

conda way

For scientific computing (this is also recommended on packaging.python.org, see above) I would consider using CONDA packaging which can be seen as a 3rd party service build on top of PyPI and pip tools. It also works great on setting up your own version of binstar so I would imagine it can do the trick for sophisticated custom enterprise package management.

Conda can be installed into a user folder (no super user permisssions) and works like magic with

conda install

and powerful virtual env expansion.

eggs way

This option was related to python-distribute.org and is largerly outdated (as well as the site) so let me point you to one of the ready to use yet compact setup.py examples I like:

• A very practical example/implementation of mixing scripts and single python files into setup.py is giving here
• Even better one from hyperopt

This quote was taken from the guide on the state of setup.py and still applies:

• setup.py gone!
• distutils gone!
• distribute gone!
• pip and virtualenv here to stay!
• eggs ... gone!

I add one more point (from me)

• wheels!

I would recommend to get some understanding of packaging-ecosystem (from the guide pointed by gotgenes) before attempting mindless copy-pasting.

Most of examples out there in the Internet start with

from distutils.core import setup

but this for example does not support building an egg python setup.py bdist_egg (as well as some other old features), which were available in

from setuptools import setup

And the reason is that they are deprecated.

Now according to the guide

Warning

Please use the Distribute package rather than the Setuptools package because there are problems in this package that can and will not be fixed.

deprecated setuptools are to be replaced by distutils2, which "will be part of the standard library in Python 3.3". I must say I liked setuptools and eggs and have not yet been completely convinced by convenience of distutils2. It requires

pip install Distutils2

and to install

python -m distutils2.run install

PS

Packaging never was trivial (one learns this by trying to develop a new one), so I assume a lot of things have gone for reason. I just hope this time it will be is done correctly.