python setup.py configuration to install files in custom directories

Question

I want to create a setup.py which would install my files into custom directories. I have a certain prefix, where I would like to get the following result:

/my/prefix/
  bin/
    script.sh
  libexec/
    one.py
    two.py
    ...
  lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages/
    package/...

My initial project is following:

/
  script.sh
  one.py
  two.py
  ...
  setup.py
  package/...
    __init__.py
    ...

What would be the best way to achieve that? I would like to be able to install it later with something like:

python setup.py install --prefix=/my/prefix

I can get "package" nicely installed in the correct directory as lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages under --prefix is the default location. But is there a clean way to get script.sh into "bin" and other python files into "libexec"? The only way I see to achieve that would be to manually copy those files in my setup.py script. Maybe there is a cleaner and more standard way to do that?

There's some useful docs on this here: https://docs.python.org/2/install/index.html#alternate-installation-unix-the-prefix-scheme and here https://docs.python.org/3/distutils/introduction.html — Pierz, Feb 28 '18 at 11:13
With `setuptools` see https://stackoverflow.com/q/24745852/520567 — akostadinov, May 05 '22 at 21:54

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered May 05 '12 at 03:35

10

The scripts are handled by use of the scripts parameter to the setup function. For libexec you can treat them as data files and use a data options.

setup(...
    scripts=glob("bin/*"),
    data_files=[(os.path.join(sys.prefix, 'libexec', 'mypackage'), glob("libexec/*"))],
    ...
)

I'm not sure how that would work with a --prefix option, I've never tried that.

answered May 05 '12 at 03:35

Keith

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Thanks! data_files did it for me. Another question, can I have a default "prefix"? If the user doesn't specify one, I would like to use my own (instead of the python default). – Ago May 05 '12 at 08:30
1

You can make option defaults in the setup.cfg file. It's in .ini style option file with sections and name-value pairs. Command line options directly translate to options there (remove `--`, etc). – Keith May 05 '12 at 16:13
What's the best way to refer to `libexec` inside some of the files in the Python package if you are going to use `libexec` here in the `setup.py`? Can `setup.py` do macro substitution in the same vein as autoconf `@libexecdir@`? – CMCDragonkai Dec 13 '19 at 03:31

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '23 at 12:17

I ended up with setup.py like that:

setup(name='mylib',
  scripts=['script.sh'],
  data_files=[('libexec', ['one.py', 'two.py'])]
)

Of course, you could iterate over all python files for libexec, but I only have 2-3 python files I need there.

Additionally, I can have setup.cfg with the following:

[install]
prefix=/my/prefix

and instead of python setup.py install --prefix=/my/prefix I can just do:

python setup.py install

_{This answer was posted as edits (edit 1, edit 2) to the question python setup.py configuration to install files in custom directories by the OP Ago under CC BY-SA 3.0.}

python setup.py configuration to install files in custom directories

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