Python Version Support¶

In Fedora we have multiple Python runtimes, one for each supported major Python release. At this point that’s one for python2.x and one for python3.x. If a piece of software supports python3, it must be packaged for python3. If it supports python2 as well, it may be packaged for python2. If it supports only python2 then (obviously) it must not be packaged for python3.

Multiple Python Runtimes¶

Each runtime corresponds to a binary of the form /usr/bin/python$MAJOR.$MINOR. One of these python runtimes is the “system runtime” which is what is run when invoking /usr/bin/python. On Fedora 27, for example, this is a link to /usr/bin/python2 (which itself is a link to /usr/bin/python2.7).

However, packages in Fedora MUST not depend on where /usr/bin/python happens to point but instead MUST call the proper executable for the needed python major version directly, either /usr/bin/python2 or /usr/bin/python3 as appropriate. As a result of that /usr/bin/python (as well as /usr/bin/env python and similar) MUST NOT be used in shebang lines or as a dependency of a package.

All python runtimes have a virtual provide for python(abi) = $MAJOR-$MINOR. For example, the python-3.4 runtime package has:

$ rpm -q --provides python3 |grep -i abi
python(abi) = 3.4

python modules using these runtimes should have a corresponding “Requires” line on the python runtime that they are used with. This is done automatically for files below /usr/lib[^/]*/python${PYVER}

Mirroring the policy for regular packages, the Python-version-specific subpackages of your package MUST NOT be removed in a release branch of Fedora.

Dependencies¶

Packages building for Python2 will need BuildRequires: python2-devel. Packages building for Python3 will need BuildRequires: python3-devel. Packages building for for both will need build-time dependencies on both.

Packages MUST NOT have dependencies (either build-time or runtime) on packages named with the unversioned python- prefix unless no properly versioned package exists. Dependencies on Python packages instead MUST use names beginning with python2- or python3- as appropriate.

Provides¶

Using a fictional module named “example”, the subpackage containing the python2 version must provide python2-example. This is of course always the case if the subpackage is named python2-example (as in the examples below). If the subpackage has some other name then then Provides: python2-example must be added explicitly (but see the %python_provide macro below).

The python3 subpackage must provide python3-example. However, as the naming guidelines mandate that the python3 subpackage be named python3-example, this will happen automatically.

Automatic Provides with a standardized name¶

Since Fedora 25, when building a Python package, RPM looks for .dist-info and .egg-info files or directories in the %files sections of all packages. If one or more are found, RPM parses them to find the standardized name (i.e. dist name, name on PyPI) of the packaged software, and then automatically creates two Provides: tags in the following format:

Provides: pythonX.Ydist(CANONICAL_STANDARDIZED_NAME)
Provides: pythonXdist(CANONICAL_STANDARDIZED_NAME)

The X and X.Y are the Python version used (usually 2.7 or 3.5 and higher), and between the parentheses is the name of the software in a canonical format used by Python tools and services such as setuptools, pip and PyPI. The canonical name is obtained by switching the standardized name to lower case and converting all runs of non-alphanumeric characters to single “-” characters. Example: “The $$$ Tree” becomes “the-tree”.

BuildRequires: %{py2_dist PyMySQL} >= 0.7.5
# => BuildRequires: python2dist(pymysql) >= 0.7.5

Requires: %{py3_dist virtualenv pyPEG2}
# => Requires: python3dist(virtualenv) python3dist(pypeg2)

%{py_dist_name 0-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-0}
# => 0-0

Macros¶

The following macros are defined for you:

During %install or when listing %files you can use the python2_sitearch and python2_sitelib macros to specify where the installed modules are to be found. For instance:

%files
# A pure python2 module
%{python2_sitelib}/foomodule/
# A compiled python2 extension module
%{python2_sitearch}/barmodule/
# A compiled python3 extension module
%{python3_sitearch}/bazmodule/

Use of the macros has several benefits:

• It ensures that the packages are installed correctly on multilib architectures.
• Using these macros instead of hardcoding the directory in the specfile ensures your spec remains compatible with the installed python version even if the directory structure changes radically (for instance, if python2_sitelib moves into %{_datadir}).

Files to include¶

When packaging python modules, several types of files are included:

• .py source files

  because they are used when generating tracebacks.

• .pyc and *.pyo byte compiled files

  (and, if present, the enclosing __pycache__ directory in most cases).

  • Python will try to create them at runtime if they don’t exist which leads to spurious SELinux AVC denials in the logs.
  • If the system administrator invokes python with -OO, .pyos will be created with no docstrings. This can break some programs.

• .egg-info files or directories.

  If these are generated by the module’s build scripts they must be included in the package because they might be needed by other applications and modules at runtime.

The source files must be included in the same package as the byte compiled versions.

Byte compiling¶

Python will automatically try to byte compile files when it runs in order to speed up startup the next time it is run. These files are saved in files with the extension of .pyc (compiled python) or .pyo (optimized compiled python). With current versions of python 3, these files will be located inside a directory named __pycache__. Older versions of python will simply place them alongside the .py files.

The .pyc and .pyo files contain byte code that is portable across OSes. If you do not include them in your packages, python will try (and generally fail) to create them when the user runs the program. If the system administrator runs the program, then the files will be successfully written, causing stray .pyc and .pyo files which will not be removed when the package is removed. To prevent that the byte compiled files need to be compiled and included in the %files section. Normally, byte compilation is done for you by the brp-python-bytecompile script. This script runs after the %install section of the spec file has been processed and byte compiles any .py files that it finds (this recompilation puts the proper filesystem paths into the modules otherwise tracebacks would include the %{buildroot} in them).

You must include in your package the .pyc and .pyo files. If the build process creates a __pycache__ directory in a subdirectory of %{python3_sitearch} or %{python3_sitelib}, you must also include all items in the __pycache__ directory. (You should not include the directories %{python3_sitearch}/__pycache__ or %{python3_sitelib}/__pycache__ because they are already owned by the python3-libs package.)

All that you need to do is include the files in the %files section (replacing %{python3_sitelib} with the appropriate macro for your package):

%files
%{python3_sitelib}/foo/

or, if the python code installs directly into %{python3_sitelib}:

%files
%{python3_sitelib}/foo.py
%{python3_sitelib}/__pycache__/*

Common SRPM vs split SRPMs¶

Many times when you package a python module you will want to create a module for python2 and a module for python3. Both versions should be built from the same SRPM. An exception to this would be if the two versions are distributed as separate archives and do not follow the same release schedule.

Example common spec file¶

The following is a very simple spec file for a module building for both python2 and python3. It builds both versions in the same directory; this is possible because the build products for different versions of Python usually do not conflict.

There are cases where it is not possible to build in a single directory. Most commonly this happens when the sources are modified during the build process to convert them from python2 to python3 using the the 2to3 tool. In that case, please see the appendix.

As you can see in the %install section below, the order in which you do the python2 versus python3 install can sometimes matter. You need to be aware of when the install is writing to the same file in both packages (in this example, a script in %{_bindir} and make sure that you’re getting the version you expect.

%global srcname example
%global sum An example python module

Name:           python-%{srcname}
Version:        1.2.3
Release:        1%{?dist}
Summary:        %{sum}

License:        MIT
URL:            https://pypi.python.org/pypi/%{srcname}
Source0:        https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/source/e/%{srcname}/%{srcname}-%{version}.tar.gz

BuildArch:      noarch
BuildRequires:  python2-devel python3-devel

%description
An python module which provides a convenient example.

%package -n python2-%{srcname}
Summary:        %{sum}
%{?python_provide:%python_provide python2-%{srcname}}

%description -n python2-%{srcname}
An python module which provides a convenient example.


%package -n python3-%{srcname}
Summary:        %{sum}
%{?python_provide:%python_provide python3-%{srcname}}

%description -n python3-%{srcname}
An python module which provides a convenient example.


%prep
%autosetup -n %{srcname}-%{version}

%build
%py2_build
%py3_build

%install
# Must do the python2 install first because the scripts in /usr/bin are
# overwritten with every setup.py install, and in general we want the
# python3 version to be the default.
# If, however, we're installing separate executables for python2 and python3,
# the order needs to be reversed so the unversioned executable is the python2 one.
%py2_install
%py3_install

%check
%{__python2} setup.py test
%{__python3} setup.py test

# Note that there is no %%files section for the unversioned python module if we are building for several python runtimes
%files -n python2-%{srcname}
%license COPYING
%doc README.rst
%{python2_sitelib}/*

%files -n python3-%{srcname}
%license COPYING
%doc README.rst
%{python3_sitelib}/*
%{_bindir}/sample-exec

%changelog

Avoiding collisions between the python 2 and python 3 stacks¶

The python 2 and python 3 stacks are intended to be fully-installable in parallel. When generalizing the package for both python 2 and python 3, it is important to ensure that two different built packages do not attempt to place different payloads into the same path.

entry_points = {
    'console_scripts': [
        'coverage = coverage:main',
        ]
    },

scripts = ['pygmentize'],

Packaging eggs¶

Please see the Python eggs guidelines for information specific to Python eggs.

Reviewer checklist¶

The following briefly summarizes the guidelines for reviewers to go over:

• Must: If you build for more than one python runtime you must use the %python_provide macro.
• Must: If you build for a single python runtime you must add %python_provide python-$module so that the current default python is provided from the unversioned python package.
• Must: Python modules must be built from source. They cannot simply drop an egg from upstream into the proper directory. (See prebuilt binaries Guidelines for details)
• Must: Python modules must not download any dependencies during the build process.
• Must: When building a compat package, it must install using easy_install -m so it won’t conflict with the main package.
• Must: When building multiple versions (for a compat package) one of the packages must contain a default version that is usable via “import MODULE” with no prior setup.
• Should: A package which is used by another package via an egg interface should provide egg info.

Filtering Requires: and Provides:¶

RPM’s dependency generator can often throw in additional dependencies and will often think packages provide functionality contrary to reality. To fix this, the dependency generator needs to be overriden so that the additional dependencies can be filtered out. See Packaging:AutoProvidesAndRequiresFiltering for details.