Python scripts are usable for a lot of stuff, i.e. fetching tha latest posts from /r/python or counting the total number of lines in your project folder. However, remembering where a script is placed and having to type python dest/to/script/myscript.py every time can be a lot of pain. Of course, you can make an alias so you only have to type myscript to run it, but it would be much nicer to make the script available from any computer, any place, and in addition possibly helping others with the same problem.
It only takes three simple steps to make you python app pip-installable.
After this, you and anyone else can install it by typing:
pip install my_awesome_script
The script can really simple or big and advanced. We'll cover the most basic example
1 #!/usr/bin/env python
2 print "Hello World"
You can name the script anything, but this name will be the name you'll be typing every time, so make sure it's not to difficult. We'll name our script helloworld.
The setup.py file is is the centre of building, distributing and installing modules using the Distutils.
1 from setuptools import setup
2
3 setup(
4 name='my-awesome-helloworld-script', # This is the name of your PyPI-package.
5 version='0.1', # Update the version number for new releases
6 scripts=['helloworld'] # The name of your scipt, and also the command you'll be using for calling it
7 )
Optional: We can now package the script using python setup.py sdist. This will create a dist folder containing all your distributions. After unpacking the distribution file, you can simply install it using sudo python setup.py install.
First, you need to register the package on PyPi. This is simply done by typing python setup.py register. If you haven't registered a package from this computer before, you'll be prompted with this message:
$ python setup.py register
running register
We need to know who you are, so please choose either:
1. use your existing login,
2. register as a new user,
3. have the server generate a new password for you (and email it to you), or
4. quit
Your selection [default 1]:
...
Once this is done, register will ask you if you want to save your login information in the .pypirc file. By default, this will store the login name and the password. The next step is to upload your package. Just type python setup.py sdist upload, and the package is now available on PyPI! You can save a few keystrokes by doing it all in one command: python setup.py register sdist upload.
Finally, you can now install you package with pip install my-awesome-helloworld-script. You probably want to sudo that line. You can now run the script with:
$ helloworld
Hello world!
All code from this guide can be found here. For more advanced programs and packages, I recommend this guide by Scott Torborg.