How to Bootstrap numpy installation in setup.py

Question

I have a project which has a C extension which requires numpy. Ideally, I\'d like whoever downloads my project to just be able to run python setup.py install or

Answer 1

The key is to defer importing numpy until after it has been installed. A trick I learned from this pybind11 example is to import numpy in the __str__ method of a helper class (get_numpy_include below).

from setuptools import setup, Extension

class get_numpy_include(object):
    """Defer numpy.get_include() until after numpy is installed."""

    def __str__(self):
        import numpy
        return numpy.get_include()


ext_modules = [Extension('vme', ['vme.c'], extra_link_args=['-lvme'],
                         include_dirs=[get_numpy_include()])]

setup(name='vme',
      version='0.1',
      description='Module for communicating over VME with CAEN digitizers.',
      ext_modules=ext_modules,
      install_requires=['numpy','pyzmq', 'Sphinx'])