This project shows how to package data files within a Python distribution, and has some example code for reading the data files. To build this distribution, create a venv with setuptools, wheel, and pep517 installed, then execute the latter as a module:
python -m pep517.build .
The distributions (an sdist .tar.gz and a bdist .whl) will be written to ./dist/ subdirectory. To test it out, install the distribution and run the console script resources-example
.
Here's a compatibility summary of the five approaches demonstrated:
Module | Description | In stdlib? | Works on Py2? | Works on Py3? | Works in zipfile? | Run as script?* |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
example1.py | os.path.join | yes | yes | yes | no | yes |
example2.py | pkgutil | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
example3.py | pkg_resources | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
example4.py | importlib.resources | yes | no | yes (3.7+) | yes | yes |
example5.py | importlib_resources | no | yes | yes | yes | yes |
* "Run as script" means executing the submodule directly, e.g. python myapp/example2.py
. Note that Guido considers this an anti-pattern
If you are interested in creating an executable zip from source, you can use stdlib zipapp utility (Python 3.5+):
python3 -m zipapp --compress /path/to/resources-example --main="myapp:main" --output=myapp.zip
And now you can run the zip directly with the interpreter (any Python version):
python myapp.zip