resources-example

This project shows how to package data files within a Python distribution, and has some example code for reading the data files. To build this distribution, create a venv with build_ installed and then execute

.. code-block:: bash

python -m build

The distributions (an sdist .tar.gz and a bdist .whl) will be written to ./dist/ subdirectory. To test it out, install the distribution and run the console script resources-example.

Here's a compatibility summary of the five approaches demonstrated:

+-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | Module | Description | In stdlib? | Works on Py2? | Works on Py3? | Works in zipfile? | Run as script?* | +=============+=======================+============+===============+===============+===================+=================+ | example1.py | os.path.join | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | +-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | example2.py | pkgutil | yes | yes | yes | yes | no | +-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | example3.py | pkg_resources | no | yes | deprecated | yes | yes | +-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | example4.py | importlib.resources. | deprecated | no | yes (3.7+) | yes | yes | | | read_binary/read_text | | | | | | +-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+ | example5.py | importlib.resources. | yes (3.9+) | yes | yes | yes | yes | | | files | | | | | | +-------------+-----------------------+------------+---------------+---------------+-------------------+-----------------+

* "Run as script" means executing the submodule directly, e.g. python myapp/example2.py. Note that Guido considers this an anti-pattern <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-3000/2007-April/006793.html>_

If you are interested in creating an executable zip from source, you can use stdlib zipapp <https://docs.python.org/3/library/zipapp.html>_ utility (Python 3.5+):

.. code-block:: bash

python3 -m zipapp --compress /path/to/resources-example --main="myapp:main" --output=myapp.zip

If this command is slow or the .zip is surprisingly large, make sure don't have any stray subdirs in the source path beforehand (e.g. .venv, .git, .idea).

Now you can run the zip directly with the interpreter (any Python version):

.. code-block:: bash

python myapp.zip

.. _build: https://pypi.org/project/build/