buildout.recipe.isolation 0.2.0

Recipe for isolating Python distributions (packages and scripts).

This buildout recipe’s sole purpose is to isolate distribution packages and there dependencies. This recipe was originally developed to be used in the packaging of Zope2 for the Debian operating system. The recipe can additionally be used to populate a Python enviroment (or virtual environment). This can be handy in situations where buildout is required to build the application, but the developer/system administrator wants to use the application in a typical Python environment.

Isolation of distributions

The buildout.recipe.isolation recipe can be used to isolate distributions and their dependencies in a single directory. The recipe takes a number of options:

dists

A list of distributions to isolate given as one or more setuptools requirement strings. Each requirements string should be given on a separate line. The default is to use the part name as the distribution.

exclude-dists (optional)

A list of distributions that should be excluded from the isolation.

dists-location (optional)

A directory location where the isolated distributions should be put. This option defaults to a location in the buildout parts directory under the section name where the recipe is being used.

scripts-location (optional)

A directory location where the distribution scripts should be isolated. This option defaults to a location in the buildout parts directory under the part (or section) name followed by ‘-scripts’ (e.g. for a part named isolated the default scripts directory name would be isolated-scripts).

pth-location (optional)

A directory location where a .pth file will be created for this isolation. This option defaults to a location in the buildout parts directory under the part (or section) name followed by ‘-pth’ (e.g. for a part named isolated, the default pth directory name would be isolated-pth).

The final name of the pth file will be the part name with a .pth extension. To reference the resulting .pth file, use the pth-file-location options.

pth-file-location (reference only)

A location where the .pth file lives. The resulting .pth file is used during the script generation process to provide a list of distributions that are isolated somewhere else on the filesystem.

Note

This option can only be referenced. Later versions of this recipe may provide a means to change the pth filename.

extra-pth (optional)

A list of .pth files to include as part of the script initialization.

This option resolves dependency issues caused by dependency isolation. For instance, if you are using exclude-dists and those distributions that are being exluded are required to run a script, you probably want to include the .pth file with locations to those dependencies.

exclude-own-pth (optional)

A boolean option, that when set will exclude the in context part’s generated .pth file from inclusion in scripts. This option is closely tied to pth-file-location and extra-pth. This option is false by default.

The reason this option has been included is because the locations in the .pth file main already be included in the python path via the .pth file’s location in site-packages.

executable (optional)

The location of the Python executable. By default this is sys.executable.

The executable specified is not executed in the recipe. The location is used as the shebang line during the scripts generation.

stage-locally (optional)

A boolean option to specify whether we should stage the resources or put them in there final destination. If this option is true, the values specified for dist-location, script-location and pth-location are used to generate the resources, but the resources are placed in the default parts locations. This option is handy for staged installation.

Recipe deliverables

• A directory that contains a specified distribution(s) package and its dependency package(s).

• A directory that contains a .pth file, which lists the absolute path for each package in the isolation context.

• A directory that contains the scripts that have been generated from the distribution(s) package and its dependency packages.

How it works

We have a sample buildout. Let’s update it’s configuration file to install the demo package.

>>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts = demo
...
... [demo]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = demo<0.3
... find-links = %(server)s
... index = %(server)s/index
... """ % dict(server=link_server))

In this example, we limited ourselves to revisions before 0.3. We also specified where to find distributions using the find-links option.

In order to control the distribution test data, we decided to use buildout’s testing index, shown below:

>>> print get(link_server),
<html><body>
<a href="bigdemo-0.1-py2.3.egg">bigdemo-0.1-pyN.N.egg</a><br>
<a href="demo-0.1-py2.3.egg">demo-0.1-py2.3.egg</a><br>
<a href="demo-0.2-py2.3.egg">demo-0.2-py2.3.egg</a><br>
<a href="demo-0.3-py2.3.egg">demo-0.3-py2.3.egg</a><br>
<a href="demo-0.4c1-py2.3.egg">demo-0.4c1-py2.3.egg</a><br>
<a href="demoneeded-1.0.zip">demoneeded-1.0.zip</a><br>
<a href="demoneeded-1.1.zip">demoneeded-1.1.zip</a><br>
<a href="demoneeded-1.2c1.zip">demoneeded-1.2c1.zip</a><br>
<a href="extdemo-1.4.zip">extdemo-1.4.zip</a><br>
<a href="index/">index/</a><br>
<a href="other-1.0-py2.3.egg">other-1.0-py2.3.egg</a><br>
</body></html>

We will be using this index through the testing structure and further explaining the relationships before each of these distributions.

Let’s run the buildout:

>>> import os
>>> print system(buildout), #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
Installing demo.
Getting distribution for 'demo<0.3'.
Got demo 0.2.
Getting distribution for 'demoneeded'.
install_dir ...
Got demoneeded 1.2c1.
demo: Copying demo to the destination directory.
demo: Copying demoneeded to the destination directory.
demo: Generated script '/sample-buildout/parts/demo-scripts/demo'.

Now, if we look at the buildout parts directory for the isolation:

>>> ls(sample_buildout, 'parts/demo')
-  demo-0.2-py2.3.egg
d  demoneeded-1.2c1-py2.3.egg

These distributions have been entered into a .pth file as well. This file is not directly useful to the buildout, but has it’s place in a Python environment. The contents of the .pth file will be the absolute path for each of the distributions that have been installed into the isolation. Let’s have a look:

>>> cat(sample_buildout, 'parts/demo-pth', 'demo.pth')
/sample-buildout/parts/demo/demo-0.2-py2.6.egg
/sample-buildout/parts/demo/demoneeded-1.2c1-py2.6.egg

By default the name of the .pth files will be the name of the buildout section, which in this case is demo. You can change the location of the .pth file using the pth-file-location option.

Note

When using the pth-file-location option, the directory that the .pth file will reside, must exist prior to running the buildout. If directory does not exist, an IOError will be raised and the buildout will fail.

Dependency exclusion

Let’s now try a buildout with a slightly larger example that we can use to illustrate the exclude dependencies from a certain isolation.

Let’s create a new buildout configuration based on the previous one. This configuration is setup to isolate the bigdemo distribution and its dependencies, but exclude the demoneeded dependency.

>>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts =
...     demoneeded
...     demo
... find-links = %(server)s
... index = %(server)s/index
...
... [demoneeded]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = demoneeded
...
... [demo]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = bigdemo
... exclude-dists = ${demoneeded:dists}
... """ % dict(server=link_server))

>>> print system(buildout), #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
Uninstalling demo.
Installing demoneeded.
demoneeded: Copying demoneeded to the destination directory.
Installing demo.
Getting distribution for 'bigdemo'.
Got bigdemo 0.1.
Getting distribution for 'demo'.
Got demo 0.4c1.
demo: Copying demo to the destination directory.
demo: Copying bigdemo to the destination directory.
demo: Generated script '/sample-buildout/parts/demo-scripts/demo'.

Check the isolated results:

>>> ls(sample_buildout, 'parts/demo')
-  bigdemo-0.1-py2.6.egg
-  demo-0.4c1-py2.6.egg
>>> ls(sample_buildout, 'parts/demoneeded')
d  demoneeded-1.2c1-py2.6.egg

Script generation

Some distributions supply command-line scripts with there packages. Buildout typically generates these scripts for us, because it needs to supply the built packages to to script. It does this by injecting the distribution locations into the Python system path. In some cases we do not want to inject anything into the Python system path, because we may have deposited the generated .pth file in a virtual environment’s site-packages directory. While in other cases, we might want to supply our .pth file as a mean for import resolution. Let’s take a closer look at both cases.

For the general case, we will likely want to supply our .pth file to the script. Additionally, we will probably want to supply any .pth files that dependent isolations may have generated. Here is an example.

>>> import sys
>>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts =
...     demoneeded
...     demo
... find-links = %(server)s
... index = %(server)s/index
...
... [demoneeded]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = demoneeded
...
... [demo]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = bigdemo
... exclude-dists = ${demoneeded:dists}
... extra-pth = ${demoneeded:pth-file-location}
... executable = %(python)s
... """ % dict(server=link_server, python=sys.executable))
>>> print system(buildout), #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
Uninstalling demo.
Uninstalling demoneeded.
Installing demoneeded.
demoneeded: Copying demoneeded to the destination directory.
Installing demo.
demo: Copying demo to the destination directory.
demo: Copying bigdemo to the destination directory.
demo: Generated script '/sample-buildout/parts/demo-scripts/demo'.

The resulting script should have two .pth files in it. The demo.pth file has been defined and generated from the recipe in context. The demoneeded.pth file was generated by the demoneeded section and pulled in using the extra-pth recipe option.

>>> if sys.platform == 'win32':
...    script_name = 'demo-script.py'
... else:
...    script_name = 'demo'
>>> script_dir = 'parts/demo-scripts'
>>> f = open(os.path.join(sample_buildout, script_dir, script_name))
>>> shebang = f.readline().strip()
>>> if shebang[:3] == '#!"' and shebang[-1] == '"':
...     shebang = '#!'+shebang[3:-1]
>>> shebang == '#!' + os.path.realpath(sys.executable)
True
>>> print f.read(), # doctest: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
<BLANKLINE>
import sys
def pth_injector(pth_file):
    path_file = open(pth_file, 'r')
    sys.path[0:0] = [line
        for line in path_file.read().split('\n')
        if line is not None]
<BLANKLINE>
pth_files = ['/sample-buildout/parts/demo-pth/demo.pth', '/sample-buildout/parts/demoneeded-pth/demoneeded.pth']
for pth in pth_files:
    pth_injector(pth)
<BLANKLINE>
import eggrecipedemo
<BLANKLINE>
if __name__ == '__main__':
    eggrecipedemo.main()
>>> f.close()

The second case is where we have deposited the .pth files into a virtual environment. Let’s setup a fake virtual environment structure inside the buildout structure for demonstration sake.

>>> virtenv = os.path.join(sample_buildout, 'virtenv')
>>> mkdir(virtenv)
>>> mkdir(virtenv, 'bin')
>>> mkdir(virtenv, 'lib')
>>> mkdir(virtenv, 'lib', 'python2.6')
>>> mkdir(virtenv, 'lib', 'python2.6', 'site-packages')
>>> site_pkgs = os.path.join(virtenv, 'lib', 'python2.6', 'site-packages')

All we really need for the purpose of this demonstration is the site-packages directory.

>>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts =
...     demoneeded
...     demo
... find-links = %(server)s
... index = %(server)s/index
...
... [demoneeded]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = demoneeded
... pth-file-location = %(site_pkgs)s
...
... [demo]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = bigdemo
... exclude-dists = ${demoneeded:dists}
... pth-file-location = %(site_pkgs)s
... exclude-own-pth = trUE
... python = %(python)s
... """ % dict(server=link_server, python=sys.executable,
...     site_pkgs=site_pkgs))
>>> print system(buildout), #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
Uninstalling demo.
Uninstalling demoneeded.
Installing demoneeded.
demoneeded: Copying demoneeded to the destination directory.
Installing demo.
demo: Copying demo to the destination directory.
demo: Copying bigdemo to the destination directory.
demo: Generated script '/sample-buildout/parts/demo-scripts/demo'.

Now if we print out the demo script, we’ll find no mention of the .pth files.

>>> f = open(os.path.join(sample_buildout, script_dir, script_name))
>>> shebang = f.readline().strip()
>>> if shebang[:3] == '#!"' and shebang[-1] == '"':
...     shebang = '#!'+shebang[3:-1]
>>> shebang == '#!' + os.path.realpath(sys.executable)
True
>>> print f.read(), # doctest: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
<BLANKLINE>
import eggrecipedemo
<BLANKLINE>
if __name__ == '__main__':
    eggrecipedemo.main()
>>> f.close()

Why does this work? If we were to use the virtual environments Python executable, it would load the site-packages directory and any .pth files in it. This would in turn load the modules we built using the buildout.

Note

We aren’t actually using the virtual environments Python executable in this test case, but it is a simple matter of changing the executable value in the system_python section of this buildout.cfg.

Staging the isolation

In some situations it is handy to build the packages locally before transfering these resources to a final destination. To do this we stage the isolation process with the stage-locally option.

This option will allow you to set the dists-location, scripts-location and pth-file-location as final destinations, but place the results in their default build location. The default build location, if you recall, is in the buildout’s parts directory.

Note

The following example isn’t necessarily useful beyond the test that it satisfies. If you’re trying to figure out how to use the staging parts of this recipe and run into issues or parts you don’t understand, please feel free to contact the author (see the package metadata for the address).

Let’s have a look at how this works by creating similar buildout to those about execept now we are setting the stage-locally option to true:

>>> write(sample_buildout, 'buildout.cfg',
... """
... [buildout]
... parts =
...     demo
... find-links = %(server)s
... index = %(server)s/index
...
... [demo]
... recipe = buildout.recipe.isolation
... dists = bigdemo
... dists-location = %(site_pkgs)s
... scripts-location = %(bin_dir)s
... pth-location = %(site_pkgs)s
... executable = %(python)s
... stage-locally = true
... """ % dict(server=link_server,
...            bin_dir=os.path.join(virtenv, 'bin'),
...            python=os.path.join(virtenv, 'bin', 'python'),
...            site_pkgs=site_pkgs))
>>> print system(buildout), #doctest: +ELLIPSIS
Uninstalling demo.
Uninstalling demoneeded.
Installing demo.
demo: Copying demo to the staging directory.
demo: Copying demoneeded to the staging directory.
demo: Copying bigdemo to the staging directory.
demo: Can't find the executable on the filesystem. Perhaps this setup is not destine to be used on this machine. So we are using the given executable value /sample-buildout/virtenv/bin/python as is.
demo: Generated script '/sample-buildout/parts/demo-scripts/demo'.

To verify that things have been staged, let’s have a closer look at the demo script to verify everything went as planned. For one, we expect the script to be in the parts directory:

>>> parts_dir = os.path.join(sample_buildout, 'parts')
>>> demo_script = os.path.join(parts_dir, 'demo-scripts', 'demo')
>>> os.path.exists(demo_script)
True
>>> cat(demo_script)
#!/sample-buildout/virtenv/bin/python
<BLANKLINE>
import sys
def pth_injector(pth_file):
    path_file = open(pth_file, 'r')
    sys.path[0:0] = [line
        for line in path_file.read().split('\n')
        if line is not None]
<BLANKLINE>
pth_files = ['/sample-buildout/virtenv/lib/python2.6/site-packages/demo.pth']
for pth in pth_files:
    pth_injector(pth)
<BLANKLINE>
import eggrecipedemo
<BLANKLINE>
if __name__ == '__main__':
    eggrecipedemo.main()

And also we want to check that the pth locations are correct and that the pth itself is in the staging area with parts:

>>> demo_pth = os.path.join(parts_dir, 'demo-pth', 'demo.pth')
>>> cat(demo_pth)
/sample-buildout/virtenv/lib/python2.6/site-packages/demo-0.4c1-py2.1.egg
/sample-buildout/virtenv/lib/python2.6/site-packages/demoneeded-1.2c1-py2.1.egg
/sample-buildout/virtenv/lib/python2.6/site-packages/bigdemo-0.1-py2.1.egg

Issues and help

If you have issues or need assistance, file a bug report on WebLion’s project site or contact us via IRC or email.