Best way to share code across several setup.py scripts?

python, setuptools

Solution

Normally `setup.py` is the entry point for distribution of distinct packages. As such, it's hard to then share code between those packages.

If you use `setuptools` (or it's fork, `distribute`) in your `setup.py`, you can specify packages that must be installed when installing your package with the `setup_requires` entry.

Unfortunately, your `setup.py` is executed first; as soon as the `setup_requires` line is parsed, the extra packages listed there will be installed locally, but this may be too late for your needs.

The work-around is to create a separate `Distribution` object before you call `setup` which defines the `setup_requires` entries:

import setuptools

setuptools.dist.Distribution(dict(setup_requires='yoursharedsetuppackage'))
# `setup_requires` is parsed and acted upon immediately; from here on out
# the yoursharedsetuppackage is installed and importable.

import yoursharedsetuppackage

setup(...)

Problem

Original source