How can I include package_data
for sdist
without a MANIFEST.in file?
My setup.py looks like this:
import setuptools setuptools.setup( name='foo', version='2015.3', license='commercial', packages=setuptools.find_packages(), package_data={'': ['foo/bar.txt']}, )
Versions:
user@host> python Python 2.7.6 (default, Mar 22 2014, 22:59:56) >>> import setuptools >>> setuptools.version.__version__ '3.6'
I just can’t get foo/bar.txt
included.
Or is this blog post still true? http://blog.codekills.net/2011/07/15/lies,-more-lies-and-python-packaging-documentation-on–package_data-/
Over the last hour, though, I’ve learned that these statements are somewhere between “dangerously misleading” and “damn lies”.
This is because the primary type of Python package is a source package, and the canonical method for creating a source package is by using setup.py sdist
. However, the data specified in package_data are not included in source distributions — they are only included in binary (setup.py bdist
) distributions and installs (setup.py install
).
How can I include package_data
for sdist
without a MANIFEST.in file?
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Answer
TL;DR: The keys in the package_data
dictionaries are packages; the values are lists of globs. ''
is not a valid name for any Python package.
If you want to have bar.txt
be installed next to the __init__.py
of package foo
, use
package_data={'foo': ['bar.txt']}
I have the layout:
foo/ __init__.py bar.txt setup.py
Now, if foo
is a package like above, do:
import setuptools setuptools.setup( name='foo', version='2015.3', license='commercial', packages=setuptools.find_packages(), package_data={'foo': ['bar.txt']}, )
And after python setup.py sdist
, I check the contents of dist/foo-2015.3.tar.gz
% tar tfz dist/foo-2015.3.tar.gz ... foo-2015.3/foo/bar.txt ...
However, if I run your setup.py
with package_data={'': ['foo/bar.txt']}
, I can concur that the foo/bar.txt
will not be added to the source distribution, except if the foo-2015.3.egg-info/SOURCES.txt
already has the line for foo/bar.txt
– in that case the file will pop up in the source distribution too
No manifest was used; the setuptools version was 3.6
(I deliberately installed the same, old version that you were using):
>>> import setuptools >>> setuptools.__version__ '3.6'
The behaviour above also works in standard distutils
: 2.6 Installing package data of the “legacy” distutils documentation; with a comment for 2.7, 3.1:
Changed in version [2.7, 3.1]: All the files that match
package_data
will be added to theMANIFEST
file if no template is provided.