What kind of project is it? For example, is it a software library e.g. to put on PyPI, or a website application for a company to run? The answer to this question will help people answer your question because it has a big impact on what practice will be best for you. —Chris On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 11:54 PM Carles Sala Cladellas <carles@pythiac.com> wrote:

Hello here!

TL;DR: Should I use requirements.txt, or should I have my dependencies only listed inside setup.py?

Long version:

The two most common ways to have dependencies listed in a python package are either having them listed both in setup.py and requirements.txt files, or having them only listed in requirements.txt and then import them using some `parse_requirements` methods.

In the projects which I am currently working on there are five lists of requirements: - requirements.txt - requirements_test.txt - requirements_dev.txt - install_requires inside setup.py - tests_require inside setup.py

I wanted to remove duplicities, so I thought about removing the setup.py lists and parse the dependencies from the requirements*.txt files.

But then I came across this, https://stackoverflow.com/a/28842733, which recommends using a `dev` entry in `extras_require` and then using `pip install -e .[dev]` to install them, which could be easily extended to also have a `pip install -e .[test]`.

I find this a very clean option, since it reduces the amount of files the repository and makes setup.py and makes setup.py self-contained.

Are any known drawbacks to this approach? Is it a good way to go?

Regards,

-- Carles Sala Cladellascarles@pythiac.com / +34 666 278 679 https://www.pythiac.com Pythia Consulting - Data Science as a Service

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On 5/7/18 at 8:48 AM, carles@pythiac.com (Carles Sala Cladellas) pronounced:

But then I came across this, https://stackoverflow.com/a/28842733, which recommends using a `dev` entry in `extras_require` and then using `pip install -e .[dev]` to install them, which could be easily extended to also have a `pip install -e .[test]`.

We use setup.py for Pyramid. https://github.com/Pylons/pyramid/blob/master/setup.py Using just setup.py is a common practice going back a long time. It's the first method I learned in Python. We use `pip install -e .[docs]` to install documentation building requirements. "If it ain't documented, it's broken." We also use a pip requirements file (rtd.txt) to build our docs on Read The Docs. RTD effectively does a `pip install -e .[docs]` using that file. So setup.py and pip requirements files can be complementary, not mutually exclusive. --steve -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Steve Piercy Website Builder Eugene, OR <web@stevepiercy.com> <http://www.stevepiercy.com/>

On Mon, May 07, 2018 at 08:48:23AM +0200, Carles Sala Cladellas wrote:

Hello here!

TL;DR: Should I use requirements.txt, or should I have my dependencies only listed inside setup.py?

Short answer: only setup.py, unless you find a reason to also use a requirements.txt. Long answer: https://packaging.python.org/discussions/install-requires-vs-requirements/ and especially https://caremad.io/posts/2013/07/setup-vs-requirement/

But then I came across this, [1]https://stackoverflow.com/a/28842733, which recommends using a `dev` entry in `extras_require` and then using `pip install -e .[dev]` to install them, which could be easily extended to also have a `pip install -e .[test]`.

I find this a very clean option, since it reduces the amount of files the repository and makes setup.py and makes setup.py self-contained.

Are any known drawbacks to this approach? Is it a good way to go?

I like it. It works nicely for me. It's not 100% complete approach: sometimes (when I'm working on an application rather than a tool/library) I also wish to have a list of concrete version pins with which the application has been known to work, so I use pip freeze (or pip-tools) to get a requirements.txt with all the frozen versions. HTH, Marius Gedminas -- Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do. -- Steven Brust

I would emphasize that setup.py is the way to go. Requirements.txt was only ever intended to be a way for a developer to provide a dependency chain so that other developers could duplicate the environment if necessary. Today's common usage was never originally intended. The `extras_require` that you have discovered is an excellent way of segregating non-installation-required dependencies. On some of my projects, I have built up the following "standard" extras: * all - this is programmatically defined as every dependency including the package itself * dev - this is programmatically defined as every dependency excluding the packge itself * test - all testing dependencies (i.e pytest, coverage, etc.) * docs - all documentation dependences (i.e. sphinx) For onboarding, I typically just then tell someone to use `-e .[all]` for setting up a development environment.