Including non-Python files with setup py

Question

How do I make setup py include a file that isn t part of the code   Specifically  it s a license file  but it could be any other thing    I want to be able to control the location of the file  In the original source folder  the file is in the root of the package   i e  on the same level as the topmost   init   py   I want it to stay exactly there when the package is installed  regardless of operating system  How  do I do that

User · Answer

Here is a simpler answer that worked for me.

First, per a Python Dev's comment above, setuptools is not required:

package_data is also available to pure distutils setup scripts 
since 2.3. – Éric Araujo

That's great because putting a setuptools requirement on your package means you will have to install it also. In short:

from distutils.core import setup

setup(
    # ...snip...
    packages          = ['pkgname'],
    package_data      = {'pkgname': ['license.txt']},
)

User · Answer

Probably the best way to do this is to use the setuptools package data directive   This does mean using setuptools  or distribute  instead of distutils  but this is a very seamless  upgrade    Here s a full  but untested  example   from setuptools import setup  find packages  setup      name  your project name       version  0 1       description  A description        packages find packages exclude   ez setup    tests    tests           package data        license txt         include package data True      install requires         Note the specific lines that are critical here   package data        license txt     include package data True    package data is a dict of package names  empty   all packages  to a list of patterns  can include globs    For example  if you want to only specify files within your package  you can do that too   package data   yourpackage       txt    path to resources   txt      The solution here is definitely not to rename your non-py files with a  py extension   See Ian Bicking s presentation for more info   UPDATE  Another  Better  Approach  Another approach that works well if you just want to control the contents of the source distribution  sdist  and have files outside of the package  e g  top-level directory  is to add a MANIFEST in file   See the Python documentation for the format of this file   Since writing this response  I have found that using MANIFEST in is typically a less frustrating approach to just make sure your source distribution  tar gz  has the files you need    For example  if you wanted to include the requirements txt from top-level  recursively include the top-level  data  directory   include requirements txt recursive-include data     Nevertheless  in order for these files to be copied at install time to the package   s folder inside site-packages  you   ll need to supply include package data True to the setup   function  See Adding Non-Code Files for more information

User · Answer

In setup py under setup      setup     name    foo library           package data       foolibrary folderA                All files from folder A     foolibrary folderB       txt     All text files from folder B

User · Answer

Figured out a workaround  I renamed my lgpl2 1 license txt to lgpl2 1 license txt py  and put some triple quotes around the text  Now I don t need to use the data files option nor to specify any absolute paths  Making it a Python module is ugly  I know  but I consider it less ugly than specifying absolute paths

User · Answer

create MANIFEST in in the project root with recursive-include to the required directory or include with the file name   include LICENSE include README rst recursive-include package static   recursive-include package templates     documentation can be found here

User · Answer

It is 2019  and here is what is working - despite advice here and there  what I found on the internet halfway documented is using setuptools scm  passed as options to setuptools setup  This will include any data files that are versioned on your VCS  be it git or any other  to the wheel package  and will make  quot pip install quot  from the git repository to bring those files along  So  I just added these two lines to the setup call on  quot setup py quot   No extra installs or import required      setup requires   setuptools scm        include package data True   No need to manually list package data  or in a MANIFEST in file - if it is versioned  it is included in the package  The docs on  quot setuptools scm quot  put emphasis on creating a version number from the commit position  and disregard the really important part of adding the data files   I can t care less if my intermediate wheel file is named  quot  0 2 2 dev45 g3495a1f quot  or will use the hardcoded version number  quot 0 3 0dev0 quot  I ve typed in - but leaving crucial files for the program to work behind is somewhat important

User · Answer

To accomplish what you re describing will take two steps      The file needs to be added to the source tarball setup py needs to be modified to install the data file to the source path   Step 1  To add the file to the source tarball  include it in the MANIFEST  Create a MANIFEST template in the folder that contains setup py  The MANIFEST is basically a text file with a list of all the files that will be included in the source tarball   Here s what the MANIFEST for my project look like    CHANGELOG txt INSTALL txt LICENSE txt pypreprocessor py README txt setup py test py TODO txt   Note  While sdist does add some files automatically  I prefer to explicitly specify them to be sure instead of predicting what it does and doesn t   Step 2  To install the data file to the source folder  modify setup py  Since you re looking to add a data file  LICENSE txt  to the source install folder you need to modify the data install path to match the source install path  This is necessary because  by default  data files are installed to a different location than source files   To modify the data install dir to match the source install dir     Pull the install dir info from distutils with   from distutils command install import INSTALL SCHEMES   Modify the data install dir to match the source install dir   for scheme in INSTALL SCHEMES values        scheme  data     scheme  purelib     And  add the data file and location to setup     data files         LICENSE txt       Note  The steps above should accomplish exactly what you described in a standard manner without requiring any extension libraries

User · Answer

Step 1  create a MANIFEST in file in the same folder with setup py  Step 2  include the relative path to the files you want to add in MANIFEST in  include README rst include docs   txt include funniest data json   Step 3  set include package data True in the setup   function to copy these files to site-package  Reference is here

User · Answer

This works in 2020  As others said create  quot MANIFEST in quot  where your setup py is located  Next in manifest include exclude all the necessary things  Be careful here regarding the syntax  Ex  lets say we have template folder to be included in the source package  in manifest file do this   recursive-include template    Make sure you leave space between dir-name and pattern for files dirs like above  Dont do like this like we do in  gitignore recursive-include template    this won t work   Other option is to use include  There are bunch of options  Look up here at their docs for Manifest in And the final important step  include this param in your setup py and you are good to go     setup              include package data True                Hope that helps  Happy Coding

User · Answer

I just wanted to follow up on something I found working with Python 2 7 on Centos 6   Adding the package data or data files as mentioned above did not work for me   I added a MANIFEST IN with the files I wanted which put the non-python files into the tarball  but did not install them on the target machine via RPM     In the end  I was able to get the files into my solution using the  options  in the setup setuptools   The option files let you modify various sections of the spec file from setup py   As follows   from setuptools import setup   setup      name  theProjectName       version  1       packages   thePackage        url         license         author  me       author email  me email com       description         options   bdist rpm     install script    filewithinstallcommands         file - MANIFEST in   include license txt   file - filewithinstallcommands   mkdir -p  RPM BUILD ROOT pathtoinstall   this line installs your python files python setup py install -O1 --root  RPM BUILD ROOT --record INSTALLED FILES  install license txt into  pathtoinstall folder install -m 700 license txt  RPM BUILD ROOT pathtoinstall  echo  pathtoinstall license txt  gt  gt  INSTALLED FILES

User · Answer

I wanted to post a comment to one of the questions but I don t enough reputation to do that      Here s what worked for me  came up with it after referring the docs    package data        mypkg          txt       include package data  False   The last line was  strangely enough  also crucial for me  you can also omit this keyword argument - it works the same    What this does is it copies all text files in your top-level or root directory  one level up from the package mypkg you want to distribute    Hope this helps

User · Answer

None of the answers worked for me because my files were at the top level  outside the package  I used a custom build command instead  import os import setuptools from setuptools command build py import build py from shutil import copyfile  HERE   os path abspath os path dirname   file     NAME    quot thepackage quot   class BuildCommand build py       def run self           build py run self           if not self dry run              target dir   os path join self build lib  NAME              for fn in   quot VERSION quot    quot LICENSE txt quot                    copyfile os path join HERE  fn   os path join target dir fn        setuptools setup      name NAME      cmdclass   quot build py quot   BuildCommand       description DESCRIPTION

[python] Including non-Python files with setup.py

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