What are the packages in a setup.py?

Question

I was reading this article, and it had this code:

from distutils.core import setup

setup(name='Distutils',
      version='1.0',
      description='Python Distribution Utilities',
      author='Greg Ward',
      author_email='[email protected]',
      url='https://www.python.org/sigs/distutils-sig/',
      packages=['distutils', 'distutils.command'],
     )

And I am wondering what the packages are. Are they folders/directories? or a type of file? or it it a zip or py file?

Any help will be appreciated.

Answer 1

Straight from your own link.

(Relevant section)

The packages option tells the Distutils to process (build, distribute, install, etc.) all pure Python modules found in each package mentioned in the packages list.

...

Thus, when you say packages = ['foo'] in your setup script, you are promising that the Distutils will find a file foo/__init__.py