CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonsetuptoolspython-packaging
Michele Piccolini
Michele Piccolini

Reputation: 2953

Does setuptools' find_packages require __init__.py files or not to recognize packages

Does setuptools' find_packages still require that packages have an __init__.py file inside?

The documentation says

Packages are only recognized if they include an __init__.py file.

But I read that __init__.py files are not required anymore to mark a directory as a python package.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1842

Answers (1)

sinoroc
sinoroc

Reputation: 22305

Update

Looking back, the original answer is misguided.

Package initializers (the __init__.py files) should always be there. Because of some implementation details, it is true that it might work without, but it is not something that was strictly intended and not something that should be relied on.

Some details:

Original answer

In recent version of Python the package initializers (the __init__.py files) are not strictly necessary, meaning that such packages can be imported and so on.

But setuptools is not Python, so to say. And in particular find_packages still bases its lookup on the presence of such files. On the other hand, setuptools also offers the alternative find_namespace_packages function, that is able to find packages that do not contain a package initializer.

Upvotes: 7

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