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.. _package-formats: | ||
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=============== | ||
Package Formats | ||
=============== | ||
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This page discusses the file formats that are used to distribute Python packages | ||
and the differences between them. | ||
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You will find files in two formats on package indices such as PyPI_: **source | ||
distributions**, or **sdists** for short, and **binary distributions**, commonly | ||
called **wheels**. For example, the `PyPI page for pip 23.3.1 <pip-pypi_>`_ | ||
lets you download two files, ``pip-23.3.1.tar.gz`` and | ||
``pip-23.3.1-py3-none-any.whl``. The former is an sdist, the latter is a | ||
wheel. As explained below, these serve different purposes. When publishing a | ||
package on PyPI (or elsewhere), you should always upload both an sdist and one | ||
or more wheel. | ||
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What is a source distribution? | ||
============================== | ||
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Conceptually, a source distribution is an archive of the source code in raw | ||
form. Concretely, an sdist is a ``.tar.gz`` archive containing the source code | ||
plus an additional special file called ``PKG-INFO``, which holds the project | ||
metadata. The presence of this file helps packaging tools to be more efficient | ||
by not needing to compute the metadata themselves. The ``PKG-INFO`` file follows | ||
the format specified in :ref:`core-metadata` and is not intended to be written | ||
by hand [#core-metadata-format]_. | ||
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You can thus inspect the contents of an sdist by unpacking it using standard | ||
tools to work with tar archives, such as ``tar -xvf`` on UNIX platforms (like | ||
Linux and macOS), or :ref:`the command line interface of Python's tarfile module | ||
<python:tarfile-commandline>` on any platform. | ||
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Sdists serve several purposes in the packaging ecosystem. When :ref:`pip`, the | ||
standard Python package installer, cannot find a wheel to install, it will fall | ||
back on downloading a source distribution, compiling a wheel from it, and | ||
installing the wheel. Furthermore, sdists are often used as the package source | ||
by downstream packagers (such as Linux distributions, Conda, Homebrew and | ||
MacPorts on macOS, ...), who, for various reasons, may prefer them over, e.g., | ||
pulling from a Git repository. | ||
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A source distribution is recognized by its file name, which has the form | ||
:samp:`{package_name}-{version}.tar.gz`, e.g., ``pip-23.3.1.tar.gz``. | ||
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.. TODO: provide clear guidance on whether sdists should contain docs and tests. | ||
Discussion: https://discuss.python.org/t/should-sdists-include-docs-and-tests/14578 | ||
If you want technical details on the sdist format, read the :ref:`sdist | ||
specification <source-distribution-format>`. | ||
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What is a wheel? | ||
================ | ||
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Conceptually, a wheel contains exactly the files that need to be copied when | ||
installing the package. | ||
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There is a big difference between sdists and wheels for packages with | ||
:term:`extension modules <extension module>`, written in compiled languages like | ||
C, C++ and Rust, which need to be compiled into platform-dependent machine code. | ||
With these packages, wheels do not contain source code (like C source files) but | ||
compiled, executable code (like ``.so`` files on Linux or DLLs on Windows). | ||
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Furthermore, while there is only one sdist per version of a project, there may | ||
be many wheels. Again, this is most relevant in the context of extension | ||
modules. The compiled code of an extension module is tied to an operating system | ||
and processor architecture, and often also to the version of the Python | ||
interpreter (unless the :ref:`Python stable ABI <cpython-stable-abi>` is used). | ||
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For pure-Python packages, the difference between sdists and wheels is less | ||
marked. There is normally one single wheel, for all platforms and Python | ||
versions. Python is an interpreted language, which does not need ahead-of-time | ||
compilation, so wheels contain ``.py`` files just like sdists. | ||
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If you are wondering about ``.pyc`` bytecode files: they are not included in | ||
wheels, since they are cheap to generate, and including them would unnecessarily | ||
force a huge number of packages to distribute one wheel per Python version | ||
instead of one single wheel. Instead, installers like :ref:`pip` generate them | ||
while installing the package. | ||
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With that being said, there are still important differences between sdists and | ||
wheels, even for pure Python projects. Wheels are meant to contain exactly what | ||
is to be installed, and nothing more. In particular, wheels should never include | ||
tests and documentation, while sdists commonly do. Also, the wheel format is | ||
more complex than sdist. For example, it includes a special file -- called | ||
``RECORD`` -- that lists all files in the wheel along with a hash of their | ||
content, as a safety check of the download's integrity. | ||
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At a glance, you might wonder if wheels are really needed for "plain and basic" | ||
pure Python projects. Keep in mind that due to the flexibility of sdists, | ||
installers like pip cannot install from sdists directly -- they need to first | ||
build a wheel, by invoking the :term:`build backend` that the sdist specifies | ||
(the build backend may do all sorts of transformations while building the wheel, | ||
such as compiling C extensions). For this reason, even for a pure Python | ||
project, you should always upload *both* an sdist and a wheel to PyPI or other | ||
package indices. This makes installation much faster for your users, since a | ||
wheel is directly installable. By only including files that must be installed, | ||
wheels also make for smaller downloads. | ||
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On the technical level, a wheel is a ZIP archive (unlike sdists which are TAR | ||
archives). You can inspect its contents by unpacking it as a normal ZIP archive, | ||
e.g., using ``unzip`` on UNIX platforms like Linux and macOS, ``Expand-Archive`` | ||
in Powershell on Windows, or :ref:`the command line interface of Python's | ||
zipfile module <python:zipfile-commandline>`. This can be very useful to check | ||
that the wheel includes all the files you need it to. | ||
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Inside a wheel, you will find the package's files, plus an additional directory | ||
called :samp:`{package_name}-{version}.dist-info`. This directory contains | ||
various files, including a ``METADATA`` file which is the equivalent of | ||
``PKG-INFO`` in sdists, as well as ``RECORD``. This can be useful to ensure no | ||
files are missing from your wheels. | ||
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The file name of a wheel (ignoring some rarely used features) looks like this: | ||
:samp:`{package_name}-{version}-{python_tag}-{abi_tag}-{platform_tag}.whl`. | ||
This naming convention identifies which platforms and Python versions the wheel | ||
is compatible with. For example, the name ``pip-23.3.1-py3-none-any.whl`` means | ||
that: | ||
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- (``py3``) This wheel can be installed on any implementation of Python 3, | ||
whether CPython, the most widely used Python implementation, or an alternative | ||
implementation like PyPy_; | ||
- (``none``) It does not depend on the Python version; | ||
- (``any``) It does not depend on the platform. | ||
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The pattern ``py3-none-any`` is common for pure Python projects. Packages with | ||
extension modules typically ship multiple wheels with more complex tags. | ||
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All technical details on the wheel format can be found in the :ref:`wheel | ||
specification <binary-distribution-format>`. | ||
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.. _egg-format: | ||
.. _`Wheel vs Egg`: | ||
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What about eggs? | ||
================ | ||
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"Egg" is an old package format that has been replaced with the wheel format. It | ||
should not be used anymore. Since August 2023, PyPI `rejects egg uploads | ||
<pypi-eggs-deprecation_>`_. | ||
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Here's a breakdown of the important differences between wheel and egg. | ||
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* The egg format was introduced by :ref:`setuptools` in 2004, whereas the wheel | ||
format was introduced by :pep:`427` in 2012. | ||
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* Wheel has an :doc:`official standard specification | ||
</specifications/binary-distribution-format>`. Egg did not. | ||
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* Wheel is a :term:`distribution <Distribution Package>` format, i.e a packaging | ||
format. [#wheel-importable]_ Egg was both a distribution format and a runtime | ||
installation format (if left zipped), and was designed to be importable. | ||
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* Wheel archives do not include ``.pyc`` files. Therefore, when the distribution | ||
only contains Python files (i.e. no compiled extensions), and is compatible | ||
with Python 2 and 3, it's possible for a wheel to be "universal", similar to | ||
an :term:`sdist <Source Distribution (or "sdist")>`. | ||
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* Wheel uses standard :ref:`.dist-info directories | ||
<recording-installed-packages>`. Egg used ``.egg-info``. | ||
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* Wheel has a :ref:`richer file naming convention <wheel-file-name-spec>`. A | ||
single wheel archive can indicate its compatibility with a number of Python | ||
language versions and implementations, ABIs, and system architectures. | ||
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* Wheel is versioned. Every wheel file contains the version of the wheel | ||
specification and the implementation that packaged it. | ||
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* Wheel is internally organized by `sysconfig path type | ||
<https://docs.python.org/2/library/sysconfig.html#installation-paths>`_, | ||
therefore making it easier to convert to other formats. | ||
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
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.. [#core-metadata-format] This format is email-based. Although this would | ||
be unlikely to be chosen today, backwards compatibility considerations lead to | ||
it being kept as the canonical format. From the user point of view, this | ||
is mostly invisible, since the metadata is specified by the user in a way | ||
understood by the build backend, typically ``[project]`` in ``pyproject.toml``, | ||
and translated by the build backend into ``PKG-INFO``. | ||
.. [#wheel-importable] Circumstantially, in some cases, wheels can be used | ||
as an importable runtime format, although :ref:`this is not officially supported | ||
at this time <binary-distribution-format-import-wheel>`. | ||
.. _pip-pypi: https://pypi.org/project/pip/23.3.1/#files | ||
.. _pypi: https://pypi.org | ||
.. _pypi-eggs-deprecation: https://blog.pypi.org/posts/2023-06-26-deprecate-egg-uploads/ | ||
.. _pypy: https://pypy.org |
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.. _`Single sourcing the version discussion`: | ||
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=================================== | ||
Single-sourcing the Project Version | ||
=================================== | ||
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:Page Status: Complete | ||
:Last Reviewed: 2024-08-24 | ||
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One of the challenges in building packages is that the version string can be required in multiple places. | ||
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* It needs to be specified when building the package (e.g. in :file:`pyproject.toml`) | ||
This will make it available in the installed package’s metadata, from where it will be accessible at runtime using ``importlib.metadata.version("distribution_name")``. | ||
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* A package may set a module attribute (e.g., ``__version__``) to provide an alternative means of runtime access to the version of the imported package. If this is done, the value of the attribute and that used by the build system to set the distribution's version should be kept in sync in :ref:`the build systems's recommended way <Build system version handling>`. | ||
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* If the code is in in a version control system (VCS), e.g. Git, the version may appear in a *tag* such as ``v1.2.3``. | ||
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To ensure that version numbers do not get out of sync, it is recommended that there is a single source of truth for the version number. | ||
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In general, the options are: | ||
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1) If the code is in a version control system (VCS), e.g. Git, then the version can be extracted from the VCS. | ||
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2) The version can be hard-coded into the :file:`pyproject.toml` file -- and the build system can copy it into other locations it may be required. | ||
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3) The version string can be hard-coded into the source code -- either in a special purpose file, such as :file:`_version.txt`, or as a attribute in a module, such as :file:`__init__.py`, and the build system can extract it at build time. | ||
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Consult your build system's documentation for their recommended method. | ||
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.. _Build system version handling: | ||
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Build System Version Handling | ||
----------------------------- | ||
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The following are links to some build system's documentation for handling version strings. | ||
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* `Flit <https://flit.pypa.io/en/stable/>`_ | ||
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* `Hatchling <https://hatch.pypa.io/1.9/version/>`_ | ||
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* `PDM <https://pdm-project.org/en/latest/reference/pep621/#__tabbed_1_2>`_ | ||
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* `Setuptools <https://setuptools.pypa.io/en/latest/userguide/pyproject_config.html#dynamic-metadata>`_ | ||
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- `setuptools_scm <https://setuptools-scm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/>`_ |
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