I'd like to create a bdist for my Python package.
The package contains a LICENSE
file which is mandatory as part of the distribution.
I added a reference to the LICENSE
file in my MANIFEST.IN
file, and indeed after creating an sdist for my package, the LICENSE
file was there.
However, it seems like when I build a Python wheel for my package (python setup.py bdist_wheel
), the LICENSE
file is nowhere to be seen.
I'm familiar with the setup.py's concepts of package_data
and data_files
- yet they do not seem to be relevant in my use case:
package_data
requires the LICENSE
file to be inside a Python package, but I'm required to have this file on the top level folder of the project, which isn't a Python package.
data_files
requires me to map the target directory for the file after installation, but instead of having it be relative to the project's packages, it's relative to the python installation - which I find to be very weird, as it might depend on the OS/platform, whether virtualenv
is used or not, etc.
I understand that at the end of the day, the packages get installed under site-packages
and there's no room for "top level files" post-installation. Still, I'm looking for a way to have the LICENSE
file as part of my wheel
, even if it doesn't get copied later on during installation to any specific location.