setuptools: package data folder location

Question

I use setuptools to distribute my python package. Now I need to distribute additional datafiles.

From what I\'ve gathered fromt the setuptools documentation, I need

Answer 1

I Think I found a good compromise which will allow you to mantain the following structure:

/ #root
|- data/
|  |- resource1
|  |- [...]
|- src/
|  |- mypackage/
|  |  |- __init__.py
|  |  |- [...]
|- setup.py

You should install data as package_data, to avoid the problems described in samplebias answer, but in order to mantain the file structure you should add to your setup.py:

try:
    os.symlink('../../data', 'src/mypackage/data')
    setup(
        ...
        package_data = {'mypackage': ['data/*']}
        ...
    )
finally:
    os.unlink('src/mypackage/data')

This way we create the appropriate structure "just in time", and mantain our source tree organized.

To access such data files within your code, you 'simply' use:

data = resource_filename(Requirement.parse("main_package"), 'mypackage/data')

I still don't like having to specify 'mypackage' in the code, as the data could have nothing to do necessarally with this module, but i guess its a good compromise.