Distribute a Python package with a compiled dynamic shared library

Question

How do I package a Python module together with a precompiled .so library? Specifically, how do I write setup.py so that when I do this in Python

>>> import top_secret_wrapper

It can easily find top_secret.so without having to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH?

In my module development environment, I have the following file structure:

.
├── top_secret_wrapper
│   ├── top_secret.so
│   └── __init__.py
└── setup.py

Inside __init__.py, I have something like:

import top_secret

Here's my setup.py

from setuptools import setup, Extension

setup(
    name = 'top_secret_wrapper',
    version = '0.1',
    description = 'A Python wrapper for a top secret algorithm',
    url = None,
    author = 'James Bond',
    author_email = 'James.Bond.007@mi6.org',
    license = 'Spy Game License',
    zip_safe = True,
)

I'm sure my setup.py is lacking a setting where I specify the location of top_secret.so, though I'm not sure how to do that.

Answer 1

What I ended up doing is:

setup(
    name='py_my_lib',
    version=version,  # specified elsewhere
    packages=[''],
    package_dir={'': '.'},
    package_data={'': ['py_my_lib.so']},
)

This way I get to import the lib by its name, and don't have another level of nestedness:

import py_my_lib

and not

from py_my_lib_wrapper import py_my_lib

Answer 2

If that library should also be compiled during install you can describe this as an extension module. If you just want to ship it add it as package_data

Answer 3

As is mentioned in setupscript.html#installing-package-data:

setup(
    ...
    package_data={'top_secret_wrapper': ['top_secret.so']},
)