Call another setup.py in setup.py

Question

My repository contains my own python module and a submodule to one of its dependencies which has its own setup.py.

I'd like to call the dependency's setupy.py when installing my own lib, how is it possible?

My first attempt:

 $ tree
.
├── dependency
│   └── setup.py
└── mylib
    └── setup.py


 $ cat mylib/setup.py 
from setuptools import setup

setup(
    name='mylib',
    install_requires= ["../dependency"]
    # ...
)

$ cd mylib && python setup.py install
error in arbalet_core setup command: 'install_requires' must be a string or list of strings containing valid project/version requirement specifiers; Invalid requirement, parse error at "'../depen'"

However install_requires does not accept paths.

My second attempt was to use dependency_links=["../dependency"] with install_requires=["dependency"] however a dependency of the same name already exists in Pypi so setuptools tries to use that version instead of mine.

What's the correct/cleanest way?

Answer 1

A possible solution is to run a custom command before/after the install process.

An example:

from setuptools import setup
from setuptools.command.install import install

import subprocess

class InstallLocalPackage(install):
    def run(self):
        install.run(self)
        subprocess.call(
            "python path_to/local_pkg/setup.py install", shell=True
        )

setup(
    ...,
    cmdclass={ 'install': InstallLocalPackage }
)