Building and Distributing Packages with Setuptools

Setuptools is a collection of enhancements to the Python distutils that allow developers to more easily build and distribute Python packages, especially ones that have dependencies on other packages.

Packages built and distributed using setuptools look to the user like ordinary Python packages based on the distutils.

Transition to PEP517

Since setuptools no longer serves as the default build tool, one must explicitly opt in (by providing a pyproject.toml file) to use this library. The user facing part is provided by tools such as pip and backend interface is described in this document. The quickstart provides an overview of the new workflow.

• setuptools Quickstart
• Package Discovery and Namespace Package
• Entry Points
• Dependencies Management in Setuptools
• Data Files Support
• “Development Mode”
• Tagging and “Daily Build” or “Snapshot” Releases
• Generating Source Distributions
• Distributing Extensions compiled with Cython
• Specifying Your Project’s Version
• Creating distutils Extensions
• Configuring setup() using setup.cfg files
• New and Changed setup() Keywords
• Command Reference
• Using setuptools to package and distribute your project
• Automatic Resource Extraction
• Defining Additional Metadata
• Setting the zip_safe flag