pypi UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'install_requires'

Question

Does anybody encounter this warning when executing python setup.py install of a PyPI package?

install_requires defines what the package requires. A lot of PyPI packages have this option. How can it be an "unknown distribution option"?

Answer 1

It works fine if you follow the official documentation:

import setuptools
setuptools.setup(...)

Source: https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/packaging-projects/#creating-setup-py

Answer 2

In conclusion:

distutils doesn't support install_requires or entry_points, setuptools does.

change from distutils.core import setup in setup.py to from setuptools import setup or refactor your setup.py to use only distutils features.

I came here because I hadn't realized entry_points was only a setuptools feature.

If you are here wanting to convert setuptools to distutils like me:

1. remove install_requires from setup.py and just use requirements.txt with pip
2. change entry_points to scripts (doc) and refactor any modules relying on entry_points to be full scripts with shebangs and an entry point.

Answer 3

I've now seen this in legacy tools using Python2.7, where a build (like a Dockerfile) installs an unpinned dependancy, for example pytest. PyTest has dropped Python 2.7 support, so you may need to specify version < the new package release.

Or bite the bullet and convert that app to Python 3 if that is viable.

Answer 4

This was the first result on my google search, but had no answer. I found that upgrading setuptools resolved the issue for me (and pip for good measure)

pip install --upgrade pip
pip install --upgrade setuptools

Hope this helps the next person to find this link!

Answer 5

I'm on a Mac with python 2.7.11. I have been toying with creating extremely simple and straightforward projects, where my only requirement is that I can run python setup.py install, and have setup.py use the setup command, ideally from distutils. There are literally no other imports or code aside from the kwargs to setup() other than what I note here.

I get the error when the imports for my setup.py file are:

from distutils.core import setup

When I use this, I get warnings such as

/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.11/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/distutils/dist.py:267: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'entry_points' warnings.warn(msg)

If I change the imports (and nothing else) to the following:

from distutils.core import setup
import setuptools  # noqa

The warnings go away.

Note that I am not using setuptools, just importing it changes the behavior such that it no longer emits the warnings. For me, this is the cause of a truly baffling difference where some projects I'm using give those warnings, and some others do not.

Clearly, some form of monkey-patching is going on, and it is affected by whether or not that import is done. This probably isn't the situation for everyone researching this problem, but for the narrow environment in which I'm working, this is the answer I was looking for.

---

This is consistent with the other (community) comment, which says that distutils should monkeypatch setuptools, and that they had the problem when installing Ansible. Ansible appears to have tried to allow installs without having setuptools in the past, and then went back on that.

https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/setup.py

A lot of stuff is up in the air... but if you're looking for a simple answer for a simple project, you should probably just import setuptools.

Answer 6

sudo apt-get install python-dev  # for python2.x installs
sudo apt-get install python3-dev  # for python3.x installs

It will install any missing headers. It solved my issue

Answer 7

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! Imperfect answer ahead. To get the "latest memo" on the state of packaging in the Python universe, read this fairly detailed essay.

I have just ran into this problem when trying to build/install ansible. The problem seems to be that distutils really doesn't support install_requires. Setuptools should monkey-patch distutils on-the-fly, but it doesn't, probably because the last release of setuptools is 0.6c11 from 2009, whereas distutils is a core Python project.

So even after manually installing the setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg running setup.py only picks up distutils dist.py, and not the one from site-packages/setuptools/.

Also the setuptools documentation hints to using ez_setup and not distutils.

However, setuptools is itself provided by distribute nowadays, and that flavor of setup() supports install_requires.

Answer 8

As far as I can tell, this is a bug in setuptools where it isn't removing the setuptools specific options before calling up to the base class in the standard library: https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/issue/29/avoid-userwarnings-emitted-when-calling

If you have an unconditional import setuptools in your setup.py (as you should if using the setuptools specific options), then the fact the script isn't failing with ImportError indicates that setuptools is properly installed.

You can silence the warning as follows:

python -W ignore::UserWarning:distutils.dist setup.py <any-other-args>

Only do this if you use the unconditional import that will fail completely if setuptools isn't installed :)

(I'm seeing this same behaviour in a checkout from the post-merger setuptools repo, which is why I'm confident it's a setuptools bug rather than a system config problem. I expect pre-merge distribute would have the same problem)

Answer 9

python setup.py uses distutils which doesn't support install_requires. setuptools does, also distribute (its successor), and pip (which uses either) do. But you actually have to use them. I.e. call setuptools through the easy_install command or pip install.

Another way is to import setup from setuptools in your setup.py, but this not standard and makes everybody wanting to use your package have to have setuptools installed.

Answer 10

This is a warning from distutils, and is a sign that you do not have setuptools installed. Installing it from http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools will remove the warning.