Packaging of Python Programs (was Re: PISI 0.4 released)

[Michael Pilgermann]

Hi all,

since I am getting a bit confused about this topic, I thought I start a small discussion on it.

Background was our sync app PISI (written in Python), which we now tried to include in distributions (here SHR) using BB files.

Martin was kind enough to prepare a first draft of the bb file (and all the other stuff required) in order to get a running package for PISI (thx again) ...

Last night, I was then trying to take these avaialbe files and wanted to modify in order to suit our needs appropriately. I started with changing the files ... was looking around on setuptools documents, changed more files - and then came back to the following question:

*** Should we really install a Python application as a site-package?? ***

Setuptools (and whatever similar stuff is out there for Python packaging) is a very good tool to assemble and distribute Python site-packages (so to say Python libraries) - stuff, that extends Python by some additional functionality.
A program, however, does not extend the functionaility of the language - it is just an application itself.

So, my question is, whether we should distinguish between "libraries" and "applications" when talking about packaging Python "programs". "libraries" would go into site-packages; "applications" into some corresponding folder (e.g. /opt/$PROGRAMNAME) ...

That is just a suggestion - I am really not sure, which is the way to go. How are other Python "applications" handling this issue? For me it looks somehow artificial to put an application under site-packages for Python.

Comments are very welcome ... :D

Michael



-------- Original-Nachricht --------
> Datum: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:54:28 +0200
> Von: Martin Jansa <martin.jansa at gmail.com>
> An: List for Openmoko community discussion <community at lists.openmoko.org>
> Betreff: Re: PISI 0.4 released

> Hi,
> on Friday I uploaded patch for OE repository to shr trac:
> http://trac.shr-project.org/trac/ticket/592
> <http://trac.shr-project.org/trac/ticket/592>Patch contains support for
> setuptools (http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools), which seems like
> standard tool for managing python packages, that's files ez_setup.py,
> setup.py and setup.cfg. It would be nice if you include those 3 files in
> your source distribution package.
> 
> I also found few files missing from
> http://projects.openmoko.org/frs/download.php/888/pisi-src-0.4.4.tar.gz,
> which were available in subversion repository, so I made only bbfile for
> "live" subversion version of pisi, I can found which files were missing if
> you can include them to pisi-src too.
> 
> As last modification of your source distribution I created pisi python
> module and moved all pisi stuff and subdirs there, because this bbfile
> installs pisi directly in /usr/lib/python*/site-packages/pisi not to
> /opt/pisi and having lots of files and directories only for pisi directly
> in
> site-packages seemed wrong for me.
> 
> So i rearranged source files like this:
> mkdir pisi
> mv pisi*.py pisi
> touch pisi/__init__.py
> mv contacts/ modules/ events/ tests/ thirdparty/ pisi
> 
> As I said before, I'm not python programer so setuptools and python
> packages
> are new for me, so it would be nice if someone could confirm, that this
> structure is sane and you could rearrange files in subversion to simplyfi
> building process.
> 
> I'll try to prepare bbfiles for new development version dependencies as
> you
> wrote in second thread.
> 
> JaMa
> 
> 
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Michael Pilgermann
> <kichkasch at gmx.de>wrote:
> 
> > JaMa,
> >
> > thx for this offer. I don't really know, what in detail you are talking
> > about ... i was quite happy, that I managed to assemble ipkg - this is
> > all done automatically using a Makefile:
> >
> >
> https://projects.openmoko.org/plugins/scmsvn/viewcvs.php/*checkout*/trunk/Makefile?rev=135&root=pisi
> >
> > But integrating all this in feeds of repositories of course sounds good
> > to me ... just let me know, what exactly I can do for you - I am sure we
> > can sort that out ....
> >
> > (till now I have always just copied the files into my ipkgs)
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
> > Martin Jansa wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Martin Jansa <martin.jansa at gmail.com
> > > <mailto:martin.jansa at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > >
> > >     I have no experience with python, but I can try to prepare
> setup.py
> > for
> > >     setuptools next week, if you have no time or interest in it and
> then
> > >     send you patch.
> > >
> > >
> > > I had some spare time.. so before going for vacation, here is
> something
> > > which works for me, at least seems like working for me :).
> > >
> > > Maybe something could be integrated upstream so simplify bbfile for
> next
> > > version.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > JaMa
> > >
> > >
> > >
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