How to submit a Python package to PyPI

PyPI (Python Package Index) is a repository of software for Python programming language that provides a standard format for distributing Python programs and libraries. pip is a command line tool that allows to interact with PyPI i.e. install packages, search the repository etc.

This short tutorial provides only a bare minimum to get you started. For more in-depth introduction about publishing Python packages, check official Python documentation at Distributing Python Modules.

CREATE A PYTHON PACKAGE

Let's create a package called zaiste (you can check the full code of this tutorial on Github). Python package needs setup.py file on its root level.

zaiste-py
├── zaiste.py
└── setup.py

setup.py:

from distutils.core import setup

setup(
    name = 'zaiste',
    version = '0.1.0',
    description = 'A Python package example',
    author = 'Zaiste',
    author_email = '[email protected]',
    url = 'https://github.com/zaiste/zaiste-py',
    py_modules=['zaiste'],
    install_requires=[
        # list of this package dependencies
    ],
    entry_points='''
        [console_scripts]
        zaiste=zaiste:cli
    ''',
)

zaiste.py:

def cli():
    print 'Hello Zaiste'

install_requires allows us to define a list of this package dependencies.
entry_points is useful to define an entry method for a command line tool; it means: create a command line command called zaiste that will execute the code from cli() method in zaiste module.

If you're using markdown format in your README you also need setup.cfg with the following content:

[metadata]
description-file = README.md
It is more natural to use reStructuredText (REST)

PUBLISH A PYTHON PACKAGE

We are now ready to publish our package.

python setup.py register

Upload to PyPI

python setup.py sdist upload

You can now install your package with pip install, in our case it's going to be:

pip install zaiste

and then

zaiste

Hello Zaiste