How to access python package metadata from within the python console?

distutils, python, python-packaging

Solution

One way to access the metadata is to use pip:

import pip

package = [pckg for pckg in pip.get_installed_distributions() 
            if pckg.project_name == 'package_name'][0]
#  package var will contain some metadata: version, project_name and others.

or `pkg_resources`

from pkg_resources import get_distribution

pkg = get_distribution('package_name')  # also contains a metadata

Problem

If I have built a python package employing `distutils.core`, e.g. via ``` setup( ext_package="foo", author="me", version="1.0", description="foo package", packages=["foo",], ) ``` where does all the metadata go (what is it intended for?) and how can I access it from within python. Specifically, how can I access the author information from the python console after doing something like ``` >>> import foo ```

Original source