Python manually install package to virtual environment with setup.py

Question

I am developing using Python 3.7.

I'm trying to write a small Python package and install it into a virtual environment for testing. The library is structured like this:

my_package/
    src/
        my_package/
            __init__.py
            utilities.py
            some_data_files/
    setup.py
    README.md
    ...

When I create virtual environment and try to install:

(env) C:\Users\path\to\my_package python setup.py install

The output is:

running install
running bdist_egg
running egg_info
writing my_package.egg-info\PKG-INFO
writing dependency_links to my_package.egg-info\dependency_links.txt
writing top-level names to my_package.egg-info\top_level.txt
reading manifest file 'my_package.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
writing manifest file 'my_package.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
installing library code to build\bdist.win-amd64\egg
running install_lib
warning: install_lib: 'build\lib' does not exist -- no Python modules to install

creating build\bdist.win-amd64\egg
creating build\bdist.win-amd64\egg\EGG-INFO
copying my_package.egg-info\PKG-INFO -> build\bdist.win-amd64\egg\EGG-INFO
copying my_package.egg-info\SOURCES.txt -> build\bdist.win-amd64\egg\EGG-INFO
copying my_package.egg-info\dependency_links.txt -> build\bdist.win-amd64\egg\EGG-INFO
copying my_package.egg-info\top_level.txt -> build\bdist.win-amd64\egg\EGG-INFO
zip_safe flag not set; analyzing archive contents...
creating 'dist\my_package-0.0.1-py3.7.egg' and adding 'build\bdist.win-amd64\egg' to it
removing 'build\bdist.win-amd64\egg' (and everything under it)
Processing my_package-0.0.1-py3.7.egg
Copying my_package-0.0.1-py3.7.egg to c:\users\jon\development\my_package_env\env\lib\site-p
ackages
Adding my_package 0.0.1 to easy-install.pth file

Installed c:\users\jon\development\my_package_env\env\lib\site-packages\my_package-0.0.1-py3
.7.egg
Processing dependencies for my_package==0.0.1
Finished processing dependencies for my_package==0.0.1

There is an egg file in site-packages but no directory containing any of the files from the my_package directory. This is my first time writing a Python package for distribution, and I'm using the Python documentation as a guide, but I'm not ready to upload anywhere and would like to test locally. Can someone let me know what steps I must take to be able to test my package locally in a virtual environment?

Answer 1

• Create a source distribution and a built distribution of your project, with these commands:
  • (env) C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>python3 setup.py sdist
  • (env) C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>python3 setup.py bdist_wheel
• Note the two newly created archives in the dist/ directory
• Try to install these distributions in fresh virtual environments:
  • C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>python3 -m venv sdist-env
  • C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>sdist-env\Scripts\activate.bat
  • (sdist-env) C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>pip install dist\my_package-0.0.1.tar.gz
  • (sdist-env) C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>deactivate
  • C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>python3 -m venv wheel-env
  • C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>wheel-env\Scripts\activate.bat
  • (wheel-env) C:\Users\jon\development\my_package_env>pip install dist\my_package-0.0.1-py3-none-any.whl

---

Once you're confident with this, you might want to look at tox to automate the testing of your project in multiple virtual environments.