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

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='[email protected]',
    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 >> INSTALLED_FILES