Building & Distributing packages

Distribution formats

sdist or source distribution — just all the source files packaged with source of any C modules and extensions
- dependencies are specified
- everything that needs to be built will be built (if you're lucky) during installation and put where it belongs
- this includes C extensions, that are very picky about toolchains and libraries used
- is esentially an archive with all the source files, readme, license and manifest and install script (setup.py)
- considered less preferable options because during installation all the code from setup.py will be executed
bdist or built (not binary) distribution takes some of the burden off the shoulders of the end-user and actually builds everything before packaging it — thus providing (mostly) ready to use distribution
- due to differences in OS and architecture bdist will be available only for end users on the same platform it was built on
  - this is usually should be reflected in the name of the package in the PyPi, as well as Python ABI (application binary interface)¹
  - although many packages distributed as none-any ABI-platform
- is esentially is archive with libraries and packages
- can in theory be run without installation, right from the archive, but it is discouraged²
- bdist can take several forms:
  - "dumb" archive/installer — just an archive with libraries/packages
  - RPM — more involved, Linux-specific format, native way of distribution on some platforms
  - egg — deprecated, don't use it
  - wheel — specified by PEP (single way to do it right), includes all of above + naming scheme that reflects platform; external uncommon shared libraries can be included with auditwheel or delocate
- since bdist can include shared libraries that will not be updated when system ones are, this might be security concern

Built-in solution

distutils are deprecated and will be removed from Python 3.12
setuptools are usually installed alongside the Python
some claim that you don't get setuptools if building from source, but I built two versions on ec2 instance and both have it available

setuptools