Making a top level python module callable?

Question

Is it possible to perform an action when a top level python package is called from the command line?

For example, my current structure looks like this:

MyApp 
    | - subdir1 
        | - pyfile.py
        | - pyfile.py
        | - pyfile.py
    | - subdir2
        | - subsubdir1
            | - pyfile.py
            | - pyfile.py
    - __init__ 
    - other.py 

And I can do all the normal stuff. eg from MyApp.subdir1 import pyfile .

However, I'd like to allow users to call the app via its top level name from command line and have it do something

python MyApp [options]

Rather than them having to scope it to a specific module with a main() func

python /path/to/MyApp/actions/somemodule.py [options]

Is this at all possible?

Answer 1

Try python -m MyApp [options] , where your __init__.py contains a if __name__ == "__main__": block.

If you want to make that even easier for users, make it so that your setup.py script installs a command (eg /usr/bin/MyApp ) that just contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
python -m MyApp $@

That way, they don't even have to know it's a Python program. All they have to do is call MyApp [options] .

Setuptools can even generate that automatically, it's called an "entry point". See this question for more details on how they work: Explain Python entry points?