Overview

Start here for all things distlib.

Distlib evolved out of packaging

Distlib is a library which implements low-level functions that relate to packaging and distribution of Python software. It consists in part of the functions in the packaging Python package, which was intended to be released as part of Python 3.3, but was removed shortly before Python 3.3 entered beta testing.

Note

The packaging package referred to here does not refer to any packaging package currently available on PyPI, but to a package that was never released on PyPI but called packaging in the Python 3.3 alpha stdlib tree.

What was the problem with packaging?

The packaging software just wasn’t ready for inclusion in the Python standard library. The amount of work needed to get it into the desired state was too great, given the number of people able to work on the project, the time they could devote to it, and the Python 3.3 release schedule.

The approach taken by packaging was seen to be a good one: to ensure interoperability and consistency between different tools in the packaging space by defining standards for data formats through PEPs, and to do away with the ad hoc nature of installation encouraged by the distutils approach of using executable Python code in setup.py. Where custom code was needed, it could be provided in a standardised way using installation hooks.

While some very good work was done in defining PEPs to codify some of the best practices, packaging suffered from some drawbacks, too:

  • Not all the PEPs may have been functionally complete, because some important use cases were not considered – for example, built (binary) distributions for Windows.

  • It continued the command-based design of distutils, which had resulted in distutils being difficult to extend in a consistent, easily understood, and maintainable fashion.

  • Some important features required by distribution authors were not considered – for example:

    • Access to data files stored in Python packages.
    • Support for plug-in extension points.
    • Support for native script execution on Windows.

    These features are supported by third-party tools (like setuptools / Distribute) using pkg_resources, entry points and console scripts.

  • There were a lot of rough edges in the packaging implementation, both in terms of bugs and in terms of incompletely implemented features. This can be seen (with the benefit of hindsight) as due to the goals being set too ambitiously; the project developers bit off more than they could chew.

How Distlib can help

The idea behind Distlib is expressed in this python-dev mailing-list post, though a different name was suggested for the library. Basically, Distlib contains the implementations of the packaging PEPs and other low-level features which relate to packaging, distribution, and deployment of Python software. If Distlib can be made genuinely useful, then it is possible for third-party packaging tools to transition to using it. Their developers and users then benefit from standardised implementation of low-level functions, time saved by not having to reinvent wheels, and improved interoperability between tools.

How you can help

If you have some time and the inclination to improve the state of Python packaging, then you can help by trying out Distlib, raising issues where you find problems, contributing feedback and/or patches to the implementation, documentation, and underlying PEPs.

Main features

Distlib currently offers the following features:

  • The package distlib.database, which implements a database of installed distributions, as defined by PEP 376, and distribution dependency graph logic. Support is also provided for non-installed distributions (i.e. distributions registered with metadata on an index like PyPI), including the ability to scan for dependencies and building dependency graphs.

  • The package distlib.index, which implements an interface to perform operations on an index, such as registering a project, uploading a distribution or uploading documentation. Support is included for verifying SSL connections (with domain matching) and signing/verifying packages using GnuPG.

    Note

    Since this API was developed, a number of features of PyPI have been turned off for various reasons - for example, documentation uploads, XMLRPC search API - and a number of APIs have changed (e.g. PyPI no longer shows GnuPG signatures). For now, the distlib.index API should be considered not fully reliable, mostly due to changes in PyPI where there has not been enough time to catch up with them.

  • The package distlib.metadata, which implements distribution metadata as defined by PEP 643, PEP 566, PEP 345, PEP 314 and PEP 241.

    Note

    In the past distlib has tracked metadata proposals in PEPs even when they were draft, but this has proven to be too time-consuming. The current policy is not to track standards proactively while they’re still being thrashed out, but to look instead at starting to implement them once they’re marked Final.

  • The package distlib.markers, which implements environment markers as defined by PEP 508.

  • The package distlib.manifest, which implements lists of files used in packaging source distributions.

  • The package distlib.locators, which allows finding distributions, whether on PyPI (XML-RPC or via the “simple” interface), local directories or some other source.

  • The package distlib.resources, which allows access to data files stored in Python packages, both in the file system and in .zip files.

  • The package distlib.scripts, which allows installing of scripts with adjustment of shebang lines and support for native Windows executable launchers.

  • The package distlib.version, which implements version specifiers as defined by PEP 440, but also support for working with “legacy” versions (setuptools/distribute) and semantic versions.

  • The package distlib.wheel, which provides support for building and installing from the Wheel format for binary distributions (see PEP 427).

  • The package distlib.util, which contains miscellaneous functions and classes which are useful in packaging, but which do not fit neatly into one of the other packages in distlib.* The package implements enhanced globbing functionality such as the ability to use ** in patterns to specify recursing into subdirectories.

Python version and platform compatibility

Distlib is intended to be used on any Python version >= 2.7 and is tested on Python versions 2.7 and 3.6-3.10 on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Project status

The project has reached a mature status in its development: there is a test suite and it has been exercised on Windows, Ubuntu and macOS. The project is used by well-known projects such as pip, virtualenv and caniusepython3.

To work with the project, you can download a release from PyPI, or clone the source repository or download a tarball from it.

The source repository for the project is on GitHub:

https://github.com/pypa/distlib/

Coverage results are available at:

https://coveralls.io/github/vsajip/distlib/

Continuous integration test results are available at:

https://github.com/pypa/distlib/actions/

You can leave feedback by raising a new issue on the issue tracker.

Change log for distlib

0.3.9 (future)

Released: Not yet.

0.3.8

Released: 2023-12-12

  • markers

    • Fix #209: use legacy version implementation for Python versions.

  • tests

    • Fix #204: use symlinks in venv creation during test.
    • Fix #208: handle deprecation removals in Python 3.13.

0.3.7

Released: 2023-07-17

  • database

    • Handle newlines when parsing metadata.

  • markers

    • Use version comparison logic for python_full_version. Thanks to Albert Peschar for the patch.
    • Simplify code with a set comprehension. Thanks to Christian Clauss for the patch.

  • scripts

    • Fix shebang computation for source builds of Python. Thanks to Eli Schwartz for the patch.

  • util

    • Extract tarfiles more safely by incorporating tarfile filters. Thanks to Petr Viktorin for the patch.
    • Check for ‘has_cert’ attribute before using it. Thanks to Lumir Balhar for the patch.
    • Fix #203: Handle parsing of export entries to allow script names such as “,” or “,foo”. Thanks to Flavio Amurrio for the report.

  • versions

    • Fix #200: Improve conformance to PEP440. Thanks to GitHub user con-f-use for the report.

In addition to the above, an SPDX license identifier is now used.

0.3.6

Released: 2022-08-26

  • scripts

    • Fixed #175: Updated launcher executables to better handle the relationship between launcher and child process in the Job API.

0.3.5

Released: 2022-07-14

  • database

    • Fixed #170: Corrected implementation of get_required_dists().

  • index

    • Updated coverage pragmas for tests relating to obsolete PyPI APIs.

  • locators

    • Changed the default locator configuration.

  • metadata

    • Updates in support of PEP 643 / Metadata 2.2.

  • scripts

    • Updated launcher executables. Thanks to Michael Bikovitsky for his help with the launcher changes.
    • Fixed #164: Improved support for reproducible builds by allowing a fixed date/time to be inserted into created .exe files. Thanks to Somber Night for the patch.

  • util

    • Fixed #161: Updated test case.

  • wheel

    • Updated to write archive path of RECORD to RECORD instead of staging path. Thanks to Pieter Pas for the patch.
    • Fixed #169: Removed usage of deprecated imp module in favour of importlib.
    • Fixed #172: Compute ABI correctly for Python < 3.8.

In addition to the above, setup.py was replaced by setup.cfg and pyproject.toml.

0.3.4

Released: 2021-12-08

  • database

    • Fixed #153: Raise warnings in get_distributions() if bad metadata seen, but keep going.

  • markers

    • Fixed #154: Determine Python versions correctly for Python >= 3.10.

  • scripts

    • Updated launcher executables.

Code relating to support for Python 2.6 was also removed.

0.3.3

Released: 2021-09-22

  • compat

    • Fixed #152: Removed splituser() function which wasn’t used and is deprecated.

  • markers

    • Fixed #149: Handle version comparisons correctly in environment markers.

  • scripts

    • Add ARM-64 launchers and support code to use them. Thanks to Niyas Sait and Adrian Vladu for their contributions.

  • util

    • Fixed #148: Handle a single trailing comma following a version. Thanks to Blazej Floch for the report and suggested fix.

  • version

    • Fixed #150: Fix incorrect handling of epochs.

  • wheel

    • Reverted handling of tags for Python >= 3.10 (use 310 rather than 3_10). This is because PEP 641 was rejected.

  • tests

    • Made changes relating to implementing CI using GitHub Actions.

0.3.2

Released: 2021-05-29

  • locators

    • Fixed #141: removed unused regular expression.

  • metadata

    • Fixed #140: allowed “Obsoletes” in more scenarios, to better handle faulty metadata already on PyPI.

  • resources

    • Fixed #146: added entry for SourcelessFileLoader to the finder registry.

  • scripts

    • Made the generation of scripts more configurable:

      • the variant_separator attribute can be set to determine the separator used between a script basename and its X.Y variant. The default value is '-' and would result in a final script basename like 'foo-X.Y', whereas setting it to '' would result in a final script basename like 'fooX.Y'.
      • You can also subclass and override the get_script_filenames() method to provide a more customised set of file basenames.

  • util

    • Fixed #140: allowed a trailing comma in constraints, to better handle faulty metadata already on PyPI.
    • Moved get_platform() logic from distutils to here.
    • Fixed #143: removed normcase() to avoid some problems on Windows.

  • wheel

    • Dropped any trailing data when computing the Python tag.
    • Added support for manylinux tags.
    • Changed handling of tags for Python >= 3.10 (use 3_10 rather than 310).
    • Fixed #147: permission bits are now preserved on POSIX when installing from a wheel.

  • tests

    • Fixed #139: improved handling of errors related to the test PyPI server.

0.3.1

Released: 2020-06-27

The repository has been migrated to Git. References to earlier changesets (commits) in issue comments, etc. will be invalid.

  • scripts

    • Fixed #132: Added documentation to help with relative interpreter paths. Thanks to Paul Kienzle for the patch.
    • Fixed #134: Allowed specifying a different target Python version when generating scripts.
    • Fixed #135: Exposed the enquote_executable function previously implemented as an internal function.
    • Addressed #138: Improved metadata support for newer metadata versions. Thanks to James Tocknell for the patch.

  • wheel

    • Changed the output of flags in entry point definitions. Thanks to frostming (明希) for the patch.
    • Stopped writing JSON metadata. Only old-style metadata is written now.

0.3.0

Released: 2019-10-29

  • database

    • Issue #102 (partial): modules attribute of InstalledDistribution was incorrectly computed as a list of bytes, rather than a list of str. This has now been corrected.

  • locators

    • Updated Locator._get_digest to check PyPI JSON responses for a “digests” dictionary before trying “algo_digest” keys. Thanks to Jeffery To for the patch.

  • scripts

    • Fixed #123: Improved error message if a resource isn’t found.
    • Fixed #124: Stopped norm-casing the executable written into shebangs, as it doesn’t work for some non-ASCII paths.
    • Fixed #125: Updated launchers with versions that correctly report errors containing non-ASCII characters. The updated launchers now also support relative paths (see http://bit.ly/2JxmOoi for more information).
    • Changed Python version handling to accommodate versions like e.g. 3.10 (no longer assume a version X.Y where X and Y are single digits).

  • util

    • Fixed #127: Allowed hyphens in flags in export specifications.

  • wheel

    • Changed Python version handling to accommodate versions like e.g. 3.10 (no longer assume a version X.Y where X and Y are single digits).

0.2.9

Released: 2019-05-14

  • index

  • locators

  • metadata

    • Relaxed metadata format checks to ignore ‘Provides’.

  • scripts

    • Fixed #33, #34: Simplified script template.
    • Updated Windows launchers.

  • util

    • Fixed #116: Corrected parsing of credentials from URLs.

  • wheel

    • Fixed #115: Relaxed check for ‘..’ in wheel archive entries by not checking filename parts, only directory segments.
    • Skip entries in archive entries ending with ‘/’ (directories) when verifying or installing.

  • docs

    • Updated default PyPI URL to https://pypi.org/pypi.
    • Commented out Disqus comment section.
    • Changed theme configuration.
    • Updated some out-of-date argument lists.

  • tests

0.2.8

Released: 2018-10-01

  • database

    • Fixed #108: Updated metadata scan to look for the METADATA file as well as the JSON formats.

  • locators

    • Fixed #112: Handled wheel tags and platform-dependent downloads correctly in SimpleScrapingLocator.

  • metadata

    • Fixed #107: Updated documentation on testing to include information on setting PYTHONHASHSEED.

  • scripts

    • Fixed #111: Avoided unnecessary newlines in script preambles, which caused problems with detecting encoding declarations. Thanks to Wim Glenn for the report and patch.

  • util

    • Fixed #109: Removed existing files (which might have been symlinks) before overwriting.

0.2.7

Released: 2018-04-16

  • compat

    • Fixed #105: cache_from_source is now imported from importlib.util where available.

  • database

    • Addressed #102: InstalledDistributions now have a modules attribute which is a list of top-level modules as read from top_level.txt, if that is in the distribution info.

  • locators

    • Fixed #103: Thanks to Saulius Žemaitaitis for the patch.

  • metadata

    • Added support for PEP 566 / Metadata 1.3.

  • scripts

    • Fixed #104: Updated launcher binaries. Thanks to Atsushi Odagiri for the diagnosis and fix.

0.2.6

Released: 2017-10-28

  • compat

    • Fixed #99: Updated to handle a case where sys.getfilesystemencoding() returns None.

  • database

    • Fixed #97: Eliminated a crash in EggInfoDistribution.list_distinfo_files() which was caused by trying to open a non-existent file.
    • Handled a case where an installed distribution didn’t have ‘Provides:’ metadata.

  • locators

    • Fixed #96: SimpleScrapingLocator no longer fails prematurely when scraping links due to invalid versions.

  • markers

    • Improved error messages issued when interpreting markers

  • scripts

    • Improved the shebangs written into installed scripts when the interpreter path is very long or contains spaces (to cater for a limitation in shebang line parsing on Linux)
    • Updated launcher binaries.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.5

Released: 2017-05-06

  • general

    • Changed regular expressions to be compatible with 3.6 as regards escape sequences. Thanks to Ville Skyttä for the patch.
    • closed some resource leaks related to XML-RPC proxies.
    • Removed Python 2.6 from the support list.

  • locators

    • Made downloadability a factor in scoring URLs for preferences.

  • markers

    • Replaced the implementation with code which parses requirements in accordance with PEP 508 and evaluates marker expressions according to PEP 508.

  • util

    • Changed _csv_open to use utf-8 across all platforms on Python 3.x. Thanks to Alastair McCormack for the patch.

  • wheel

    • Changed to look for metadata in metadata.json as well as pydist.json.

  • version

    • Updated requirement parsing in version matchers to use the new PEP 508-compliant code.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.4

Released: 2016-09-30

  • compat

    • Updated to not fail on import if SSL is unavailable.

  • index

    • Switch from using gpg in preference to gpg2 for signing. This is to avoid gpg2’s behaviour of prompting for passwords, which interferes with the tests on some machines.

  • locators

    • Changed project name comparisons to follow PEP 503. Thanks to Steven Arcangeli for the patch.
    • Added errors queue to Locator.

  • manifest

    • Changed match logic to work under Python 3.6, due to differences in how fnmatch.translate behaves.

  • resources

    • Updated finder registry logic to reflect changes in Python 3.6.

  • scripts

    • Fixed regular expression in generated script boilerplate.

  • util

    • Updated to not fail on import if SSL is unavailable.
    • Added normalize_name for project name comparisons using PEP 503.

  • tests

    • Updated to skip certain tests if SSL is unavailable.
    • Numerous other test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.3

Released: 2016-04-30

  • util

    • Changed get_executable to return Unicode rather than bytes.
    • Fixed #84: Allow + character in output script names.
    • Relaxed too-stringent test looking for application/json in headers.

  • wheel

    • sorted the entries in RECORD before writing to file.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.2

Released: 2016-01-30

  • database

    • Issue #81: Added support for detecting distributions installed by wheel versions >= 0.23 (which use metadata.json rather than pydist.json). Thanks to Te-jé Rodgers for the patch.

  • locators

  • metadata

    • Updated to use different formatting for description field for V1.1 metadata.
    • Corrected “classifier” to “classifiers” in the mapping for V1.0 metadata.

  • scripts

    • Improved support for Jython when quoting executables in output scripts.

  • util

    • Issue #77: Made the internal URL used for extended metadata fetches configurable via a module attribute.
    • Issue #78: Improved entry point parsing to handle leading spaces in ini-format files.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • renamed environment variable SKIP_SLOW to SKIP_ONLINE in tests and applied to some more tests.
    • Numerous other test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.1

Released: 2015-07-07

  • locators

    • Issue #58: Return a Distribution instance or None from locate().
    • Issue #59: Skipped special keys when looking for versions.
    • Improved behaviour of PyPIJSONLocator to be analogous to that of other locators.

  • resource

    • Added resource iterator functionality.

  • scripts

    • Issue #71: Updated launchers to decode shebangs using UTF-8. This allows non-ASCII pathnames to be correctly handled.
    • Ensured that the executable written to shebangs is normcased.
    • Changed ScriptMaker to work better under Jython.

  • util

    • Changed the mode setting method to work better under Jython.
    • Changed get_executable() to return a normcased value.

  • wheel

    • Handled multiple-architecture wheel filenames correctly.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.2.0

Released: 2014-12-17

  • compat

    • Updated match_hostname to use the latest Python implementation.

  • database

    • Added download_urls and digests attributes to Distribution.

  • locators

    • Issue #48: Fixed the problem of adding a tuple containing a set (unhashable) to a set, by wrapping with frozenset().
    • Issue #55: Return multiple download URLs for distributions, if available.

  • manifest

    • Issue #57: Remove unhelpful warnings about pattern matches.

  • metadata

    • Updated to reflect changes to PEP 426.

  • resources

    • Issue #50: The type of the path needs to be preserved on 2.x.

  • scripts

    • Updated (including launchers) to support providing arguments to interpreters in shebang lines.
    • The launcher sources are now included in the repository and the source distribution (they are to be found in the PC directory).
    • Added frames support in IronPython (patch by Pawel Jasinski).
    • Issue #51: encode shebang executable using utf-8 rather than fsencode.

  • util

    • Removed reference to __PYVENV_LAUNCHER__ when determining executable for scripts (relevant only on macOS).
    • Updated to support changes to PEP 426.

  • version

    • Updated to reflect changes to versioning proposed in PEP 440.

  • wheel

    • Updated build() code to respect interpreter arguments in prebuilt scripts.
    • Updated to support changes to PEP 426 / PEP 440.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.9

Released: 2014-05-19

  • index

    • Added keystore keyword argument to signing and verification APIs.

  • scripts

    • Issue #47: Updated binary launchers to fix double-quoting bug where script executable paths have spaces.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.8

Released: 2014-03-18

  • index

    • Improved thread-safety in SimpleScrapingLocator (issue #45).
    • Replaced absolute imports with relative ones.
    • Added search method to PackageIndex.

  • locators

    • Improved thread-safety in SimpleScrapingLocator (issue #45).

  • metadata

    • Fixed bug in add_requirements implementation.

  • resources

    • The Cache class was refactored into distlib.util.Cache and distlib.resources.ResourceCache classes.

  • scripts

    • Implement quoting for executables with spaces in them.

  • util

    • Gained the Cache class, which is also used in distlib.wheel.

  • version

    • Allowed versions with a single numeric component and a local version component.
    • Adjusted pre-release computation for legacy versions to be the same as the logic in the setuptools documentation.

  • wheel

    • Added verify, update, is_compatible and is_mountable methods to the Wheel class.
    • Converted local version separators from ‘-’ to ‘_’ and back.
    • If SOABI not available, used Py_DEBUG, Py_UNICODE_SIZE and WITH_PYMALLOC to derive the ABI.
    • Added “exists” property to Wheel instances.
    • Factored out RECORD writing and zip building to separate methods.
    • Provided the ability to determine the location where extensions are extracted, by using the distlib.util.Cache class.
    • Avoided using pydist.json in 1.0 wheels (bdist_wheel writes a non-conforming pydist.json.)
    • Improved computation of compatible tags on macOS, and made COMPATIBLE_TAGS a set.

  • _backport/sysconfig

    • Replaced an absolute import with a relative one.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.7

Released: 2014-01-16

  • metadata

    • Added some more fields to the metadata for the index.

  • resources

    • Use native literal string in cache path.
    • Issue #40: Now does path adjustments differently for files and zips.

  • scripts

    • Improved checking for venvs when generating scripts.

  • util

    • Issue #39: Fall back to temporary directory for cache if home directory unavailable.

  • wheel

    • Use native literal string in cache path.

0.1.6

Released: 2013-12-31

  • scripts

    • Updated binary launchers because the wrong variant was shipped with the previous release.

  • version

    • Added support for local component in PEP 440 versions.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.5

Released: 2013-12-15

  • compat

    • Changed source of import for unescape in Python >= 3.4.

  • index

    • Used dummy_threading when threading isn’t available.
    • Used https for default index.

  • locators

    • Used dummy_threading when threading isn’t available.

  • scripts

    • Defaulted to setting script mode bits on POSIX.
    • Use uncompressed executable launchers, since some anti-virus products raise false positive errors.

  • util

    • Used dummy_threading when threading isn’t available.

  • docs

    • Updated out-of-date links in overview.

  • tests

    • Used dummy_threading when threading isn’t available.

0.1.4

Released: 2013-10-31

  • scripts

    • Updated the logic for finding the distlib package using a relative, rather than absolute method. This fixes a problem for pip, where distlib is kept in the pip.vendor.distlib package.

  • _backport/sysconfig

    • The analogous change to that made for scripts, described above.

0.1.3

Released: 2013-10-18

  • database

    • Added support for PEP 426 JSON metadata (pydist.json).
    • Generalised digests to support e.g. SHA256.
    • Fixed a bug in parsing legacy metadata from .egg directories.
    • Removed duplicated code relating to parsing “provides” fields.

  • index

    • Changes relating to support for PEP 426 JSON metadata (pydist.json).

  • locators

    • Changes relating to support for PEP 426 JSON metadata (pydist.json).
    • Fixed a bug in scoring download URLs for preference when multiple URLs are available.
    • The legacy scheme is used for the default locator.
    • Made changes relating to parsing “provides” fields.
    • Generalised digests to support e.g. SHA256.
    • If no release version is found for a requirement, prereleases are now considered even if not explicitly requested.

  • markers

    • Added support for markers as specified in PEP 426.

  • metadata

    • Added support for PEP 426 JSON metadata (pydist.json). The old metadata class is renamed to LegacyMetadata, and the (new) Metadata class wraps the JSON format (and also the legacy format, through LegacyMetadata).
    • Removed code which was only used if docutils was installed. This code implemented validation of .rst descriptions, which is not done in distlib.

  • scripts

    • Updated the logic for writing executable files to deal as best we can with files which are already in use and hence cannot be deleted on Windows.
    • Changed the script generation when launchers are used to write a single executable which wraps a script (whether pre-built or generated) and includes a manifest to avoid UAC prompts on Windows.
    • Changed the interface for script generation options: the make and make_multiple methods of ScriptMaker now take an optional options dictionary.

  • util

    • Added extract_by_key() to copy selected keys from one dict to another.
    • Added parse_name_and_version() for use in parsing “provides” fields.
    • Made split_filename more flexible.

  • version

    • Added support for PEP 440 version matching.
    • Removed AdaptiveVersion, AdaptiveMatcher etc. as they don’t add sufficient value to justify keeping them in.

  • wheel

    • Added wheel_version kwarg to Wheel.build API.
    • Changed Wheel.install API (after consultation on distutils-sig).
    • Added support for PEP 426 JSON metadata (pydist.json).
    • Added lib_only flag to install() method.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.2

Released: 2013-04-30

  • compat

    • Added BaseConfigurator backport for 2.6.

  • database

    • Return RECORD path from write_installed_files (or None if dry_run).
    • Explicitly return None from write_shared_locations if dry run.

  • metadata

  • scripts

    • Add variants and clobber flag for generation of foo/fooX/foo-X.Y.
    • Added .exe manifests for Windows.

  • util

    • Regularised recording of written files.
    • Added Configurator.

  • version

    • Tidyups, most suggested by Donald Stufft: Made key functions private, removed _Common class, removed checking for huge version numbers, made UnsupportedVersionError a ValueError.

  • wheel

    • Replaced absolute import with relative.
    • Handle None return from write_shared_locations correctly.
    • Fixed bug in Mounter for extension modules not in sub-packages.
    • Made dylib-cache Python version-specific.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

  • other

    • Corrected setup.py to ensure that sysconfig.cfg is included.

0.1.1

Released: 2013-03-22

  • database

    • Updated requirements logic to use extras and environment markers.
    • Made it easier to subclass Distribution and EggInfoDistribution.

  • locators

    • Added method to clear locator caches.
    • Added the ability to skip pre-releases.

  • manifest

    • Fixed bug which caused side-effect when sorting a manifest.

  • metadata

    • Updated to handle most 2.0 fields, though PEP 426 is still a draft.
    • Added the option to skip unset fields when writing.

  • resources

    • Made separate subclasses ResourceBase, Resource and ResourceContainer from Resource. Thanks to Thomas Kluyver for the suggestion and patch.

  • scripts

    • Fixed bug which prevented writing shebang lines correctly on Windows.

  • util

    • Made get_cache_base more useful by parameterising the suffix to use.
    • Fixed a bug when reading CSV streams from .zip files under 3.x.

  • version

    • Added is_prerelease property to versions.
    • Moved to PEP 426 version formats and sorting.

  • wheel

    • Fixed CSV stream reading under 3.x and handled UTF-8 in zip entries correctly.
    • Added metadata and info properties, and updated the install method to return the installed distribution.
    • Added mount/unmount functionality.
    • Removed compatible_tags() function in favour of COMPATIBLE_TAGS attribute.

  • docs

    • Numerous documentation updates, not detailed further here.

  • tests

    • Numerous test refinements, not detailed further here.

0.1.0

Released: 2013-03-02

  • Initial release.

Next steps

You might find it helpful to look at the Tutorial, or the API Reference.