Transition from existing python packaging infrastructure¶

Converting distutils-based packages¶

The bentomaker command-line tool has a convert command which should be run at the top of your source tree (the directory containing your top setup.py). Because the convert command works by running the setup.py, you need to make sure you can run the setup.py. To convert your package, just do:

bentomaker convert

If successfull, this will write a bento.info file whose content has been pulled of the convert command analysis (it will not overwrite an existing one). It first tries to determine whether your setup.py uses setuptools or not, and then run it with mocked distutils objects for the actual conversion. Since the convert command works by inserting various hooks into distutils internals, it is inherently fragile.

It will definitely not work in the following cases:

• you use the package_dir feature: bento does not support the feature at all.
• you have your own distutils extensions (setuptools and numpy.distutils are somehow handled, though, and other common distutils extensions may be added as well).

It should support the following features:

• All the distutils metadata
• Some setuptools metadata (like require or console scripts)
• module, packages and extensions
• data files as specified in data_files
• source files in MANIFEST[.in]

Note:: because the convert command does not parse the setup.py, but runs it instead, it only handles package description as defined by this one run of setup.py. For example, bento convert cannot automatically handle the following setup.py:

import sys
from setuptools import setup

if sys.platform == "win32":
    requires = ["sphinx", "pywin32"]
else:
    requires = ["sphinx"]

setup(name="foo", install_requires=requires)

If run on windows, the generated bento.info will be:

Name: foo

Library:
    InstallRequires:
        pywin32,
        sphinx

and:

Name: foo

Library:
    InstallRequires:
        sphinx

otherwise.

Note:: bento syntax supports simple conditional, so after conversion, you could modify the generated file as follows:

Name: foo

Library:
    InstallRequires:
        sphinx
    if os(win32):
        InstallRequires:
            pywin32

Adding bento-based setup.py for compatibility with pip, etc...¶

Although nothing fundamentally prevents bento to work under installers such as pip, pip currently does not know anything about bento. To help transition, bento has a distutils compatibility layer. A setup.py as simple as:

import setuptools
from bento.distutils.monkey_patch import monkey_patch
monkey_patch()

from setuptools import setup

if __name__ == '__main__':
    setup()

will enable commands such as:

python setup.py install
python setup.py sdist

to work as expected, taking all the package information from bento.info file. Note that the monkey-patching done by bento.distutils on top of setuptools is explicit - solely importing bento.distutils will not monkey patch anything. A simpler, setuptools-style monkey patch is also possible:

import setuptools
from bento.distutils.monkey_patch import setup

if __name__ == '__main__':
    setup()

Note:: obviously, this mode will not enable all the features offered by bento. If it were possible, bento would not have been written in the first place. Nevertheless, the following commands should work relatively well as long as you don’t have hooks:

• sdist
• bdist_egg
• install

This should be enough for pip install foo or easy_install foo to work for a bento-based package.