Embedding a Python library in my own package

Question

How can I ’embed’ a Python library in my own Python package?

Take the Requests library, for instance.
How could I integrate it into my own package, the objective being to allow me to run my application on different machines without actually installing Requests on every one, but having it in the same folder as my package?

Is this even possible?

Asked By: Sean Bone

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Source

Answer 1

If it’s a pure python library (no compiled modules) you can simply place the library in a folder in your project and add that folder to your module search path. Here’s an example project:

|- application.py
|- lib
|  `- ...
|- docs
|  `- ...
`- vendor
   |- requests
   |  |- __init__.py
   |  `- ...
   `- other libraries...

The vendor folder in this example contains all third party modules. The file application.py would contain this:

import os
import sys

# Add vendor directory to module search path
parent_dir = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
vendor_dir = os.path.join(parent_dir, 'vendor')

sys.path.append(vendor_dir)

# Now you can import any library located in the "vendor" folder!
import requests

Bonus fact

As noted by seeafish in the comments, you can install packages directly into the vendor directory:

pip install <pkg_name> -t /path/to/vendor_dir

Answered By: Hubro

Answer 2

If you only need to run your application may be pyinstaller packaging is a better option.

It will create a single bundle with everything that is needed, including Python, to avoid dependencies on the system you’re running in.

Answered By: 6502

Answer 3

While not a direct answer to your question. You may want to look at setuptools. By leveraging this package distribution mechanism you can describe your dependencies and when your package is “installed” all the dependent packages will be installed too. You would create a setup.py file at the top of your package structure similar to:

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
    name = 'MyPackage',
    version = '1.0',
    packages = find_packages(),
    ...
    install_requires = ['requests'],
    ...
)

this would be installed by the user

python setup.py install

Requests would be automatically installed too.

Answered By: AChampion

Answer 4

All of the above answers are correct but the best solution is creating a standard package.

You can refer to this link:
https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/packaging-projects/

Answered By: Reza Roshan

Embedding a Python library in my own package

Question:

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Bonus fact