What is setup py

Question

Can anyone please explain what setup py is and how it can be configured or used

User · Answer

When you download a package with setup py open your Terminal  Mac Linux  or Command Prompt  Windows   Using cd  and helping you with Tab button set the path right to the folder where you have downloaded the file and where there is setup py    iMac   user   cd path pakagefolderwithsetupfile    Press enter  you should see something like this   iMac pakagefolderwithsetupfile user    Then type after this python setup py install    iMac pakagefolderwithsetupfile user  python setup py install   Press enter  Done

User · Answer

To install a Python package you ve downloaded  you extract the archive and run the setup py script inside   python setup py install   To me  this has always felt odd  It would be more natural to point a package manager at the download  as one would do in Ruby and Nodejs  eg  gem install rails-4 1 1 gem  A package manager is more comfortable too  because it s familiar and reliable  On the other hand  each setup py is novel  because it s specific to the package  It demands faith in convention  I trust this setup py takes the same commands as others I have used in the past   That s a regrettable tax on mental willpower    I m not saying the setup py workflow is less secure than a package manager  I understand Pip just runs the setup py inside   but certainly I feel it s awkard and jarring  There s a harmony to commands all being to the same package manager application  You might even grow fond it

User · Answer

setup py can be used in two scenarios   First  you want to install a Python package  Second  you want to create your own Python package  Usually standard Python package has couple of important files like setup py  setup cfg and Manifest in  When you are creating the Python package  these three files will determine the  content in PKG-INFO under egg-info folder  name  version  description  other required installations  usually in  txt file  and few other parameters  setup cfg is read by setup py while package is created  could be tar gz    Manifest in is where you can define what should be included in your package  Anyways you can do bunch of stuff using setup py like   python setup py build python setup py install python setup py sdist  lt distname gt  upload  -r urltorepo    to upload package to pypi or local repo    There are bunch of other commands which could be used with setup py   for help   python setup py --help-commands

User · Answer

setup py is a Python script that is usually shipped with libraries or programs  written in that language  It s purpose is the correct installation of the software   Many packages use the distutils framework in conjuction with setup py   http   docs python org distutils

User · Answer

To make it simple  setup py is run as    main    when you call the install functions the other answers mentioned  Inside setup py  you should put everything needed to install your package   Common setup py functions  The following two sections discuss two things many setup py modules have    setuptools setup  This function allows you to specify project attributes like the name of the project  the version     Most importantly  this function allows you to install other functions if they re packaged properly  See this webpage for an example of setuptools setup  These attributes of setuptools setup enable installing these types of packages    Packages that are imported to your project and listed in PyPI using setuptools findpackages   packages find packages exclude   docs   tests     gitignore    README rst   DESCRIPTION rst    Packages not in PyPI  but can be downloaded from a URL using dependency links   dependency links   http   peak telecommunity com snapshots       Custom functions  In an ideal world  setuptools setup would handle everything for you  Unfortunately this isn t always the case  Sometimes you have to do specific things  like installing dependencies with the subprocess command  to get the system you re installing on in the right state for your package  Try to avoid this  these functions get confusing and often differ between OS and even distribution

User · Answer

setup py is a Python file like any other   It can take any name  except by convention it is named setup py so that there is not a different procedure with each script   Most frequently setup py is used to install a Python module but server other purposes   Modules   Perhaps this is most famous usage of setup py is in modules   Although they can be installed using pip   old Python versions did not include pip by default and they needed to be installed separately     If you wanted to install a module but did not want to install pip  just about the only alternative was to install the module from setup py file   This could be achieved via python setup py install   This would install the Python module to the root dictionary  without pip  easy install ect    This method is often used when pip will fail   For example if the correct Python version of the desired package is not available via pipperhaps because it is no longer maintained    downloading the source and running python setup py install would perform the same thing  except in the case of compiled binaries are required    but will disregard the Python version -unless an error is returned    Another use of setup py is to install a package from source   If a module is still under development the wheel files will not be available and the only way to install is to install from the source directly    Building Python extensions   When a module has been built it can be converted into module ready for distribution using a distutils setup script  Once built these can be installed using the command above   A setup script is easy to build and once the file has been properly configured and can be compiled by running python setup py build  see link for all commands    Once again it is named setup py for ease of use and by convention  but can take any name   Cython   Another famous use of setup py files include compiled extensions   These require a setup script with user defined values   They allow fast  but once compiled are platform dependant  execution   Here is a simple example from the documentation   from distutils core import setup from Cython Build import cythonize  setup      name    Hello world app       ext modules   cythonize  hello pyx        This can be compiled via python setup py build  Cx Freeze   Another module requiring a setup script is cx Freeze   This converts Python script to executables   This allows many commands such as descriptions  names  icons  packages to include  exclude ect and once run will produce a distributable application   An example from the documentation   import sys from cx Freeze import setup  Executable build exe options     packages     os     excludes     tkinter      base   None if sys platform     win32       base    Win32GUI   setup   name    guifoo           version    0 1           description    My GUI application            options     build exe   build exe options           executables    Executable  guifoo py   base base      This can be compiled via python setup py build   So what is a setup py file   Quite simply it is a script that builds or configures something in the Python environment   A package when distributed should contain only one setup script but it is not uncommon to combine several together into a single setup script   Notice this often involves distutils but not always  as I showed in my last example    The thing to remember it just configures Python package script in some way    It takes the name so the same command can always be used when building or installing

User · Answer

setup py is Python s answer to a multi-platform installer and make file    If you   re familiar with command line installations  then make  amp  amp  make install translates to python setup py build  amp  amp  python setup py install    Some packages are pure Python  and are only byte compiled  Others may contain native code  which will require a native compiler  like gcc or cl  and a Python interfacing module  like swig or pyrex

User · Answer

It helps to install a python package foo on your machine  can also be in virtualenv  so that you can import the package foo from other projects and also from  I Python prompts  It does the similar job of pip  easy install etc    Using setup py Let s start with some definitions  Package - A folder directory that contains   init   py file  Module  - A valid python file with  py extension  Distribution - How one package relates to other packages and modules  Let s say you want to install a package named foo  Then you do    git clone https   github com user foo     cd foo   python setup py install  Instead  if you don t want to actually install it but still would like to use it  Then do    python setup py develop    This command will create symlinks to the source directory within site-packages instead of copying things  Because of this  it is quite fast  particularly for large packages    Creating setup py If you have your package tree like  foo  -- foo         -- data struct py         --   init   py         -- internals py  -- README  -- requirements txt  -- setup py  Then  you do the following in your setup py script so that it can be installed on some machine  from setuptools import setup  setup     name  foo      version  1 0      description  A useful module      author  Man Foo      author email  foomail foo com      packages   foo      same as name    install requires   bar    greek     external packages as dependencies    Instead  if your package tree is more complex like the one below  foo  -- foo         -- data struct py         --   init   py         -- internals py  -- README  -- requirements txt  -- scripts         -- cool         -- skype  -- setup py  Then  your setup py in this case would be like  from setuptools import setup  setup     name  foo      version  1 0      description  A useful module      author  Man Foo      author email  foomail foo com      packages   foo      same as name    install requires   bar    greek     external packages as dependencies    scripts                scripts cool                scripts skype                    Add more stuff to  setup py   amp  make it decent  from setuptools import setup  with open  quot README quot    r   as f      long description   f read    setup     name  foo      version  1 0      description  A useful module      license  quot MIT quot      long description long description     author  Man Foo      author email  foomail foo com      url  quot http   www foopackage com  quot      packages   foo      same as name    install requires   bar    greek     external packages as dependencies    scripts                scripts cool                scripts skype                   The long description is used in pypi org as the README description of your package   And finally  you re now ready to upload your package to PyPi org so that others can install your package using pip install yourpackage  First step is to claim your package name  amp  space in pypi using    python setup py register  Once your package name is registered  nobody can claim or use it  After successful registration  you have to upload your package there  to the cloud  by    python setup py upload  Optionally  you can also sign your package with GPG by    python setup py --sign upload   Bonus Reading   See a sample setup py from a real project here  torchvision-setup py  PEP 517  setuptools

User · Answer

setup py is a python file  the presence of which is an indication that the module package you are about to install has likely been packaged and distributed with Distutils  which is the standard for distributing Python Modules  This allows you to easily install Python packages  Often it s enough to write    pip install     pip will use setup py to install your module  Avoid calling setup py directly  https   docs python org 3 installing index html installing-index

User · Answer

If you downloaded package that has  setup py  in root folder  you can install it by running  python setup py install   If you are developing a project and are wondering what this file is useful for  check Python documentation on writing the Setup Script

[python] What is setup.py?

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