How to put *.egg-info/ directory out of src/ using setup.cfg or pyproject.toml?

[JDLH]

I am new to setuptools. I have started using it to package up a small, 1-module utility for internal use.

I am surprised to see, in my src/ directory where my Python modules lives, a src/My_Project.egg_info/* directory. It appears to have metadata in it. It appears to get constructed by setuptools when it performs the build.

It doesn't seem sensible to have this build artifact, with project metadata, in my src/ directory. I would like to locate it in its own directory, as a sibling to src/. Maybe put it in a directory build-info/. How can I tell setuptools where to put this directory as it builds my project?

The only documentation I can find about controlling the construction of this ....egg_info/ directory is in the Command Reference for setuptools, section "egg_info - Create egg metadata and set build tags". As far as I can tell, everything in that section refers to commands issued from the shell via setup.py. But I am not using setup.py now, and would like to avoid it. From what I understand, setup.py is deprecated, and I should not use it in this new project.

I am controlling setuptools with a setup.cfg file, and a minimal pyproject.toml file. How can I tell setuptools where to put this ....egg_info/ directory via either setup.cfg or pyproject.toml? And where is this documented?

[abravalheri]

Hi @JDLH, I have never tried myself (and I don't know how it will play together with other package tools like build/pip) but you can try specifying a section in the setup.cfg file with the same arguments that you would provide for python setup.py. For example:

[egg_info]
egg_base = ...

You might already know the following information (so please feel free to ignore the following items):

1. You can consider the .egg-info directory as a "cache artifact" in your file system. So you might also add it to your ".gitignore" file (in the same way you might be already ignoring the __pycache__ directory automatically created by the Python executable)
2. In the future setuptools is very likely to get rid of the .egg-info directory. We are in a long journey to achieve that and there are some tasks we need to complete first...

[szabi]

Not original poster, but

[egg_info]
egg_base = build

worked like a charm for me! 🎉

I also found an argument, why one might want to keep it outside of a temp/cache/build directory:

If one is putting files of their own into the .egg-info (like i18n resources for EggTranslations), then one wants those to be checked in. Source: an S/O answer

[stefaneidelloth]

What is the corresponding entry for pyproject.toml and where to place it?

[szabi]

@stefaneidelloth no idea, could not figure it out yet. If you find out, please post it here. I'd love to put it in my pyproject.toml.

Currently I have everything in the pyproject file, but this setting is sitting solo in setup.cfg.

[stefaneidelloth]

I switched to hatchling as build-backend. Also see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74508024/is-requirements-txt-still-needed-when-using-pyproject-toml and pypa/pip#12100

[spiltcoffee]

For anyone looking for the answer to @stefaneidelloth 's question, you want to add this to your pyproject.toml:

[tool.distutils.egg_info]
egg_base = "target"

At least, that's what finally got the directory to move for me.

[JDLH]

Thank you for the prompt answer @abravalheri . It is very helpful. I will give it a try.

There are a couple of insights in your answer which I did not see in the documentation. 1. There is a way of transforming the syntax of a setup.py command into a directive in setup.cfg. If this is documented, it helps people apply the rest of the Command Reference to setup.cfg cases. 2. The .egg-info directory is a cache artifact. I had a hard time finding any documentation about this directory at all. If setuptools makes it, it would be good for the setuptools documentation to say, "we create this directory, and we put it in the src/ directory, and it is a cache artifact".

[abravalheri]

Thank you very much for the feedback @JDLH. Indeed the documentation of setuptools is very lacky, so please feel free to contribute if you feel like doing it (since I joined the project I am focusing on trying to implement the evergrowing number of PEPs 😅, so I did not have the time to tackle all the problems in the docs).

This trick with the setup.cfg file is something inherited from distutils, so you can read more about it in https://docs.python.org/3/distutils/configfile.html (ideally we should migrate these docs to setuptools soon).