On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 12:43:32PM -0500, Stephen Burke wrote: > I am packaging up a python app to upload it to my PPA eventually. > Before this everything I have written is in one directory so all my > imports were simple. Now that I am breaking up the app and the top > level script is in a "bin" directory and the helper scripts are in a > "helpers" directory on the same level. How should my imports be with > this directory structure. Would I modify the PYTHONPATH to add any > directories I need or is there a better way to do this? I have read > python docs about imports but I'm wondering if there are any more > guidelines in terms of imports for python apps that are packaged for > Ubuntu. >
If I understood the question correctly..
I don't think this problem is Ubuntu-specific at all. It's more about
Python's import mechanisms and distutils, but let me tell how I would do
in your situation.
I assume you are using Python version 2.6.
It's a quite good practice to place all your modules inside a package
module. Let's assume that your project is called myproject. Then I would
call the project directory myproject. I would also create a top-level
package called myproject (but the directory name here is lib). It's a
directory with __init__.py file in it.
Directory structure of the project would be something like this:
myproject/setup.py
myproject/src/bin/script
myproject/src/lib/__init__.py
myproject/src/lib/helper.py
And setup() in setup.py would resemble the one below:
distutils.core.setup(
.
.
.
package_dir={'myproject': 'src/lib'},
packages=['myproject'],
scripts=['src/bin/script'],
.
.
)
So the scripts reside in bin-directory and lib-directory would represent
your top-level package, myproject.
python setup.py install will install files by default under /usr/local
prefix:
/usr/local/bin/script
/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/myproject
/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/myproject/__init__.py
/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/myproject/helper.py
/usr/local/bin is by default in PATH and
/usr/local/lib/python2.6./dist-packages in Python's search path.
Once installed, helper.py can be imported with:
import myproject.helper
There should be no need to play with PYTHONPATH or sys.path.append()
whatsoever.
The package structure works as a namespace. It gives a logical structure
for your project and reduces the risk of mixing identically named
modules.
For further information, please refer to:
http://docs.python.org/distutils/
When you are building a deb-package for your project, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Complete#Packaging%20Python%20modules%20with%20CDBS
I hope this helped. Perhaps more experienced ones can correct my
mistakes and give alternative solutions.
--
Tuomas
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