Pyinstaller on a setuptools package

Question

I'm attempting to run PyInstaller on a CLI app I am building in Python using the Click library. I'm having trouble building the project using PyInstaller. PyInstaller has a document in their GitHub wiki titled Recipe Setuptools Entry Point, which gives information about how to use PyInstaller with a setuptools package, which I'm using for this project. However, it seems it cannot find the base module when I run pyinstaller --onefile main.spec.

My question is: Is the problem simply an issue with the folder structure I have? Does the Recipe Setuptools Entry Point assume a certain file structure?

Relevant information

Pyinstaller output

184 INFO: PyInstaller: 3.3.1
184 INFO: Python: 3.6.4
189 INFO: Platform: Darwin-16.7.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
193 INFO: UPX is available.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pyinstaller", line 11, in <module>
    sys.exit(run())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/__main__.py", line 94, in run
    run_build(pyi_config, spec_file, **vars(args))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/__main__.py", line 46, in run_build
    PyInstaller.building.build_main.main(pyi_config, spec_file, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/building/build_main.py", line 791, in main
    build(specfile, kw.get('distpath'), kw.get('workpath'), kw.get('clean_build'))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/PyInstaller/building/build_main.py", line 737, in build
    exec(text, spec_namespace)
  File "<string>", line 40, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 26, in Entrypoint
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 582, in get_entry_info
    return get_distribution(dist).get_entry_info(group, name)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 564, in get_distribution
    dist = get_provider(dist)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 436, in get_provider
    return working_set.find(moduleOrReq) or require(str(moduleOrReq))[0]
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 984, in require
    needed = self.resolve(parse_requirements(requirements))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 870, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req, requirers)
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: The 'myapp' distribution was not found and is required by the application

The main.spec file for main.py, which is the entrypoint for my CLI app:

block_cipher = None

def Entrypoint(dist, group, name,
               scripts=None, pathex=None, hiddenimports=None,
               hookspath=None, excludes=None, runtime_hooks=None):
    import pkg_resources

    # get toplevel packages of distribution from metadata
    def get_toplevel(dist):
        distribution = pkg_resources.get_distribution(dist)
        if distribution.has_metadata('top_level.txt'):
            return list(distribution.get_metadata('top_level.txt').split())
        else:
            return []

    hiddenimports = hiddenimports or []
    packages = []
    for distribution in hiddenimports:
        packages += get_toplevel(distribution)

    scripts = scripts or []
    pathex = pathex or []
    # get the entry point
    ep = pkg_resources.get_entry_info(dist, group, name)
    # insert path of the egg at the verify front of the search path
    pathex = [ep.dist.location] + pathex
    # script name must not be a valid module name to avoid name clashes on import
    script_path = os.path.join(workpath, name + '-script.py')
    print ("creating script for entry point", dist, group, name)
    with open(script_path, 'w') as fh:
        print("import", ep.module_name, file=fh)
        print("%s.%s()" % (ep.module_name, '.'.join(ep.attrs)), file=fh)
        for package in packages:
            print ("import", package, file=fh)

    return Analysis([script_path] + scripts, pathex, hiddenimports, hookspath, excludes, runtime_hooks)

a = Entrypoint('myapp', 'console_scripts', 'myapp')

pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data,
             cipher=block_cipher)
exe = EXE(pyz,
          a.scripts,
          exclude_binaries=True,
          name='main',
          debug=False,
          strip=False,
          upx=True,
          console=True )
coll = COLLECT(exe,
               a.binaries,
               a.zipfiles,
               a.datas,
               strip=False,
               upx=True,
               name='main')

The contents of the myapp script generated when I run pip3 install --editable . in my virtual environment:

#!/some/path/to/myapp-cli/venv/bin/python3.6
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'myapp','console_scripts','myapp'
__requires__ = 'myapp'
import re
import sys
from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw?|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('myapp', 'console_scripts', 'myapp')()
    )

And finally, my repository structure:

myapp-cli/
├── README.md
├── myapp
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── main.spec
│   ├── resources
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── functions.py
│   ├── subcommands
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── config
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   └── cli.py
│   │   ├── create
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   └── cli.py
│   │   ├── destroy
│   │   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   │   └── cli.py
│   │   └── switch
│   │       ├── __init__.py
│   │       └── cli.py
│   └── variables.py
├── requirements.txt
└── setup.py

And my setup.py file:

from setuptools import find_packages
from setuptools import setup
import os

base_dir = os.path.dirname(__file__)

setup(
    entry_points = '''
        [console_scripts]
        myapp=myapp.main:entry_point
    ''',
    install_requires = [
        'packageone==1.0',
        'packagetwo==2.0',
    ],
    name = "myapp",
    packages=find_packages(),
    setup_requires="setuptools",
    version = "0.1",
)

Answer 1

First: I used a combination of Stephen's answer, and some digging of my own to find the answer. In the end, Stephen's first part did the trick: manually adding / exporting the PYTHONPATH variable. You can actually specify this using pathex in the Entrypoint function like so:

a = Entrypoint('myapp-cli',
    'console_scripts',
    'myapp',
    pathex=['/some/path/to/myapp-cli/myapp', '/some/path/to/myapp-cli']
)

I didn't end up needing the myapp.main after all.

Second: I was still having issues with PyInstaller not producing a single binary. For me, this did the trick:

• Add the latest version of PyInstaller to your requirements.txt or to your install_requires in setup.py: https://github.com/pyinstaller/pyinstaller/archive/develop.zip.
• Also, you can make your .spec file with the --onefile option in pyi-makespec like so: pyi-makespec --onefile myapp.py. This will make a .spec file that ensures that all of your packages are compiled into the binary.

In the end, the following spec file did the trick, and I was able to make a fully working binary:

# -*- mode: python -*-

block_cipher = None

def Entrypoint(dist, group, name,
               scripts=None, pathex=None, hiddenimports=None,
               hookspath=None, excludes=None, runtime_hooks=None):
    import pkg_resources

    # get toplevel packages of distribution from metadata
    def get_toplevel(dist):
        distribution = pkg_resources.get_distribution(dist)
        if distribution.has_metadata('top_level.txt'):
            return list(distribution.get_metadata('top_level.txt').split())
        else:
            return []

    hiddenimports = hiddenimports or []
    packages = []
    for distribution in hiddenimports:
        packages += get_toplevel(distribution)

    scripts = scripts or []
    pathex = pathex or []
    # get the entry point
    ep = pkg_resources.get_entry_info(dist, group, name)
    # insert path of the egg at the verify front of the search path
    pathex = [ep.dist.location] + pathex
    # script name must not be a valid module name to avoid name clashes on import
    script_path = os.path.join(workpath, name + '-script.py')
    print ("creating script for entry point", dist, group, name)
    with open(script_path, 'w') as fh:
        print("import", ep.module_name, file=fh)
        print("%s.%s()" % (ep.module_name, '.'.join(ep.attrs)), file=fh)
        for package in packages:
            print ("import", package, file=fh)

    return Analysis([script_path] + scripts, pathex, hiddenimports, hookspath, excludes, runtime_hooks)

a = Entrypoint('myapp-cli',
    'console_scripts',
    'myapp',
    pathex=['/some/path/to/myapp-cli/myapp', '/some/path/to/myapp-cli']
)

pyz = PYZ(a.pure, a.zipped_data,
             cipher=block_cipher)
exe = EXE(pyz,
          a.scripts,
          a.binaries,
          a.zipfiles,
          a.datas,
          name='myapp',
          debug=False,
          strip=False,
          upx=True,
          runtime_tmpdir=None,
          console=True )

I think in the end using something like Cobra for Golang would work easier since Golang compiles one-file binaries out of the box. However, if you prefer Python, this should do the trick.

Answer 2

This error:

pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: The 'myapp' distribution was not found and is required by the application

indicates that this package is not on PYTHONPATH. I fixed it on Windows with:

set PYTHONPATH=.

adjust to your OS of choice.

---

In addition to the path problem, there is:

In setup.py:

setup(
    entry_points = '''
        [console_scripts]
        myapp=myapp.main:entry_point
    ''',

In main.spec:

a = Entrypoint('myapp', 'console_scripts', 'myapp')

According to setup.py, it looks like your entry point is myapp.main not myapp. So you may need:

a = Entrypoint('myapp', 'console_scripts', 'myapp.main')