Example Package Python

This is a simple python package, providing a template to write your own.

A package is a collection of code that aims to perform related tasks, or perform a high level function. Python packages contain modules (.py files) that can be grouped into any number of sub-packages (folders below the package folder). This basic package contains a single module - example_module - and no sub-packages.

Package components are typically imported using one of the following methods:

import examplepackage

examplepackage.example_module.example_function()

from examplepackage.example_module import example_function

example_function()

See this Real Python guide for further information on importing packages and modules.

Useful aspects of building a package are summarised below.

Setup

There are two key components that distinguish a python packages from folders containing a collection of python files:

__init__.py files
setup.py

init.py

An __init__.py file allows files (now modules) within the same directory to imported. You should include one in each directory of your package that contains python code.

You will often find these files empty, but they do have an additional use. Code within a __init__.py file is executed when the package or sub-package is imported. Any objects defined in this file will therefore be available at that level of the package. One use for this is importing useful modules, functions or classes from deep within your package stucture, making them accessible from the package level.

from examplepackage.example_module import example_function

With the code above included in the top-level __init__.py, example_function can be accessed by users via simpler import statements:

import examplepackage

examplepackage.another_function()

from examplepackage import another_function

another_function()

setup.py

This file sits outside of the folder containing your package code. It contains the instructions that the setuptools library uses to build and install your package. These are provided using the setup function, including:

author and/or maintainer contact details
the folders to install, or use setuptools.find_packages()
install_requires - other packages that this package depends on
classifiers that describe the required major python version and operating system - this is necessary for uploading a package to PyPI

For detailed usage of setup() see the setuptools documentation.

Installing your package

Packages can only be imported if they are located in a directory on the PYTHONPATH (which you can view in python using sys.path()).

Packages installed using the command line tool pip are added to this path. This is preferable to manually adding paths to sys.path in your scripts. You can install local packages that you are working on in develop mode, by pointing pip the directory that contains setup.py and your package folder:

pip install -e local_path/example-package-python

This creates a temporary reference to your local package files - you'll see an .egg-info file has been created next to your package. When packages are installed without the -e flag, they're installed in site-packages next to your python installation.

Be sure to uninstall your package once you've finished - don't delete the .egg-info reference. Use the name of the package when deleting it, like so:

pip uninstall examplepackage

Documentation

A README is a good place to provide an overview of your package or project. This README is written in reStructuredText (.rst) for easy integration with the main documentation. However, Markdown and many other markup languages work just as well.

The sphinx package is very useful for generating detailed package documentation, and can generate this from inline documentation in your code. Once installed, the sphinx-quickstart command can be used to set up your documentation. You might find the autosummary extension useful for extracting documentation from entire modules. Documentation usually sits inside the package, in a docs/ folder.

Dependencies

You should list packages that your package uses in the requirements.txt file. Listing your package depencencies ensures that these packages are also installed when someone installs your package. Explicitly stating versions of dependencies can increase the reproducibility in the function of your package that might depend on particular versions of other packages.

Python package dependencies can indicate minimum package versions (>=) or the exact version number (==) that is required.

pandas==1.0.0
numpy>=1.18.4

License

It's important to let users and developers know under what circumstance they can use, modify and redistribute your code.

The LICENSE file associated with your package should contain the text for the packages license. The example in this package is for the MIT license.

Versioning

A version number is essential for releasing your package. Semantic versioning is a useful method for informative versioning.

It can be useful to store this in a separate file, so that it can be referenced from multiple places (e.g. setup.py and the main documentation).

Git tagging can be used to mark significant points in your projects development. These tags can also be used to trigger version releases, for example using GitHub Actions.

Including Other Files

You may want to include example data or other non-python files in your package. Be aware that the documentation for including non-python files is notoriously bad, as most methods have been depreciated.

To include data in your source and binary distributions:

In the setup.py file setup(...) function call, include include_package_data = True.
Alongside your setup.py file, provide a MANIFEST.in file.

The MANIFEST.in file should list any non-python files that you wish to include distributions.

A MANIFEST.in file includes single files, or all files of a type, as below:

include README.rst
recursive-include examplepackage/examples *.csv

Distributing

Storing your source code in an open repository allows others to view and critique your code. Python code can be distributed in a number of formats, as described by this overview of python packages.

To allow others to install and use your code more easily, consider uploading your package to the Python Package Index (PyPI). PyPI is an online repository of python packages and is the default repository used by pip.

Please see this guide to packaging projects for instructions on uploading your package to PyPI.

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