Why does “python setup.py sdist” create unwanted “PROJECT-egg.info” in project root directory?

Question

When I run

  python setup.py sdist

it creates an sdist in my ./dist directory. This includes a \"PROJECT-egg.info\" file in the zip inside

Answer 1

The -egg.info folder isn't always a temporary artifact you can delete.

For example, if you use pip install -e YOURPACKAGE for an "editable" install (works via symlink like python setup.py develop so you don't have to re-install a package every time you edit it locally), the -egg.info folder is required at runtime when your package is imported in another source. If it doesn't exist, you will get a DistributionNotFound error.

Answer 2

Note that you can have the PROJECT.egg-info artifacts disappear completely from your sdist.

The command setup.py egg_info will use the source root as the egg base by default, resulting in the PROJECT.egg-info directory being packaged into the sdist.

You can configure the egg base by passing the option --egg-base. This will create the PROJECT.egg-info directory somewhere else, leaving it out of your source distribution completely. You might also use a setup.cfg to set that property.

The following command to create a sdist without a PROJECT.egg-info works for me:

python setup.py egg_info --egg-base /tmp sdist

Or in a setup.cfg:

[egg_info]
egg_base = /tmp

Answer 3

Pythons packaging and build system is broken imho. So there are many hacks and workarounds for things that one would belive work out of the box.

However, the "cleanest" hack I found for deleting the *.egg-info is using the normal clean --all switch along with the egg_info to place the *.egg-info file in a subfolder that will be cleaned by the clean command. Here an example:

In your setup.cfg use something like this:

[egg_info]
egg_base = ./build/lib

where ./build/lib is a folder that clean --all will delete. Then when building your project with setuptools use the clean command with the --all flag, e.g.

python setup.py bdist_wheel clean --all

if you want to build a source bundle as well just make sure to build bdist_wheel before sdist so the build/lib folder exists, e.g.:

python setup.py bdist_wheel sdist clean --all

Answer 4

This directory is created intentionally as part of the build process for a source distribution. A little gander at the developer guide for setuptools gives you a hint as to why:

But, be sure to ignore any part of the distutils documentation that deals with MANIFEST or how it's generated from MANIFEST.in; setuptools shields you from these issues and doesn't work the same way in any case. Unlike the distutils, setuptools regenerates the source distribution manifest file every time you build a source distribution, and it builds it inside the project's .egg-info directory, out of the way of your main project directory. You therefore need not worry about whether it is up-to-date or not.

You may safely delete the directory after your build has completed.

Bonus edit:

I customize the clean command within my setup.py on many of my Python projects to delete *.egg-info, dist, build, and *.pyc and other files. Here's an example of how it's done in setup.py:

import os
from setuptools import setup, Command

class CleanCommand(Command):
    """Custom clean command to tidy up the project root."""
    user_options = []
    def initialize_options(self):
        pass
    def finalize_options(self):
        pass
    def run(self):
        os.system('rm -vrf ./build ./dist ./*.pyc ./*.tgz ./*.egg-info')

# Further down when you call setup()
setup(
    # ... Other setup options
    cmdclass={
        'clean': CleanCommand,
    }
)

To illustrate, after running python setup.py build on a dummy project called "poop" (Yes, I'm very mature), this happens:

$ python setup.py build
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build/lib
creating build/lib/poop
copying poop/__init__.py -> build/lib/poop

And now if we run python setup.py clean:

$ python setup.py clean
running clean
removed `./build/lib/poop/__init__.py'
removed directory: `./build/lib/poop'
removed directory: `./build/lib'
removed directory: `./build'

Tada!