Python setup package egg

Install Egg File in Python

1. Use setuptools to Install egg File in Python
2. Unzip to Install egg File in Python

Long before the pip days, packages were stored as .egg files and were installed via the setuptools component. However, since pip has been introduced to Python, .egg has been replaced by the wheel file, .whl .

If you are working with other packages, there is a possibility to face working with them; though they are deprecated, you can work around them and install the packages stored as .egg files.

In this article, we will discuss how to install the egg file in Python and the tools you can use to achieve this operation.

Use setuptools to Install egg File in Python

Eggs is a distribution format in Python previously used that contains information required by a particular project, from dependencies to environment variables.

Numerous binary formats represent eggs, but the .egg zip file format is the most popular one because it’s useful for sharing projects and simplifies the distribution of Python packages and projects. Alongside the Python code, the .egg file often contains and works with project-wide metadata, C extensions, and package-specific data.

With .egg files, you don’t need to build or install it per se; you need to add it to your sys.path , but it might often require runtime files. Like the popular Python requirement, requirements.txt and .egg files allow the libraries’ specifications to be stated within.

If you happen to need to work with a .egg file and need the non-Python data files, you need to install the .egg file. To install Python Eggs, you can make use of easy_install .

We will base all operations within the Python 2.7 environment on Windows for all the operations here to work.

To access easy_install , you need to install the setuptools package, which helps to download, install, manage, build or remove Python packages.

To install setuptools , we need to download the ez_setup.py from the setuptools package page.

After downloading the Python file, you transfer it to the Python27 directory, which would most likely be C:\Python27 . Now, open your command prompt, change the directory to C:\Python27 and set the PYTHON_PATH .

set PYTHON_PATH=c:\Python27 set Path=C:\Python27\Scripts 

Now, run the following command to install the setuptools package.

The easy_install.exe command is now installed and can be used to install an egg file within your Python 2.7 environment.

Because egg files are now deprecated, it can be hard to find one to show as an example, but we can still create them using the setuptools module.

In our case, we will create an empty egg file with the name delftscope . To create such, we need to create a setup.py file that contains the following code.

from setuptools import setup, find_packages setup(  name = "delftscope",  version = "0.1",  packages = find_packages() ) 

Afterward, we can run the following python command, which creates the egg file alongside other directories. These directories include build , dist , and delftscope.egg-info .

Within the dist directory, you will find the egg file with the name delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg .

Now that we have an egg file to work with let’s use the easy_install program to install it. Since we have added it to the OS environment using the set command, we should be able to use easy_install anywhere.

To install the egg file in Python, you can use the following command within your PowerShell.

easy_install .\delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg 

Processing delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg Copying delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg to c:\python27\lib\site-packages Adding delftscope 0.1 to easy-install.pth file  Installed c:\python27\lib\site-packages\delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg Processing dependencies for delftscope==0.1 Searching for delftscope==0.1 Reading https://pypi.python.org/simple/delftscope/ 

With this, you would have installed the module packaged within the egg file. However, Python has moved to the wheel distribution format.

Unzip to Install egg File in Python

Egg files are zip files; therefore, you can unzip this file. So, if you are on Linux, you can use the unzip package to extract its content and then use the setup.py to install the package that’s held within the egg file.

To unzip the egg file, the unzip command can be used.

unzip -l delftscope-0.1-py3.10.egg 

Afterward, you can access the contents and run the python command to install the package.

Olorunfemi is a lover of technology and computers. In addition, I write technology and coding content for developers and hobbyists. When not working, I learn to design, among other things.

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Python .Egg Files: What are They and How to Create Egg Files?

Python egg is an older version of the Python wheel package containing the metadata and installation information about a particular python package. It is usually present as a .zip file, composed of logical information, resources and source code of a python module or library.

A python egg can be physically encoded but it has been superseded by the python wheel package. Nowadays, python eggs are replaced by python wheel packages which perform the same functions.

Difference between wheel and egg files

Before pip install and wheel packages, .egg files were used for installing and uninstalling python packages from local systems.

As of 2023, Python egg files have completely been replaced by wheel files which have a more defined and structured method of storing metadata and installation resources of python files.

Wheel is a distribution format used for making installations for python. On the other hand, the egg format was both a runtime as well as a distribution package. These files were importable which is unlike python wheel packages.

Wheel packages have an official binary package called the official PyPA specifications, containing a list of all active interrelated specifications. This specification package was preceded by the .PEP 427 official support page.

Python Egg File Formats

Python currently supports three different versions of the egg file format.

• .egg format: This is the file that contains the metadata and source code of a package.
• .egg-info format: This file contains the metadata of the project located adjacent to the .egg file.
• .egg-link format : This file is occasionally encountered which is only used to make a reference to a .egg file. This is not an actual file, it just points to the .egg file. They came into existence to make cross platform alternative to links.

Even though .egg format is not used anymore in the newer versions of python, instead , wheel files are used for setup. But regardless we can still create and use egg files in older versions of python by using the setuptools and build modules.

Prerequisites for Creating Egg Files

In order to use the modules, namely, setuptools and build you will need to install them in your system.

The setuptools package helps in easy installation/uninstallation of python tools. It also makes setting up of modules easier and faster. We can also upgrade existing packages with this.

The build module helps in configuring local command line code and in smooth running of commands. You can easily switch between different projects using this module. These tools are only accessible through the project directory.

We will also use the find_packages() function from setuptools.

Now, we have to run the following code to install these two packages in our system.

pip install setuptools pip install 1build

Creating a Python .egg file

Running the code below will create an .egg file for us:

# importing the required modules from setuptools import setup, find_packages #creating a setup file setup( name = "ourfile", version = "0.1", packages = find_packages() )

Now, we have to run the following in the terminal:

After running the above code in the terminal, you should ideally see that there are three new folders that will be created namely,

Note: For many systems, this might give an error because the most widely used distribution package is wheels for the newer versions of python. It is recommended to use wheel files for newer installations and avoid .egg files since they are obsolete as of now.

Conclusion

The .egg format is suited for easy package installation and also used for upgrading existing modules. It is basically a .zip file that is an older version of the python wheel file . Nowadays, python eggs are obsolete, so it is advisable to create python wheel files so they can be easily used for the newer versions of python. Creating egg files can also raise errors due to version mismatch. To know more about python eggs, visit the official python archive.

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