CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonsetuptoolspackagingconfigparser
Chris Hubley
Chris Hubley

Reputation: 311

How to include paths in a Python user configuration file that is installed with setuptools (data_files)?

I have a project with the following structure:

myproject/
    data/
        <some directories>
    src/
        myproject/
            <python code>
    tests/
        <some tests>
    setup.py
    config.ini
    pyproject.toml
    requirements.txt

I'd like to reference the files in the data/ directory from within my project, without including them with the source distribution. I think that the best way to do that is with a configuration file (via ConfigParser, though I suppose you could use YAML or something instead).

Python's distutils/setuptools seems to offer a solution for this with the data_files option in setuptools.setup(). The way I understand it, the data_files option allows access to arbitrary files outside of the package by copying them to a location on the system (i.e. sys.prefix). This seems ideal for configuration files, which may be edited by a user prior to installation.

However, since the file is copied to some unknown location, it breaks any relative paths specified in config.ini. So, how do you deal with that?

I guess that could require absolute paths in the config file, but that's not very user-friendly.

Is there a better way to access data files which are specified via a configuration file from within a package?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 425

Answers (1)

SergeD
SergeD

Reputation: 54

You can use pkg_resources:

import pkg_resources as pk
fiber_file=pk.resource_filename( "cytolysis" , 'example_data/fiber_points.txt')

And in your setuptools setupfile :

packages=['cytolysis','cytolysis.example_data'],
package_dir={'cytolysis': 'src', 'cytolysis.example_data': 'example_data'},
package_data={'cytolysis': ['*.md'], 'cytolysis.example_data': ['*.txt', '*.cym']},

Upvotes: 0

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