Python Namespace Package Examples

This repository contains samples for the various ways to create namespace packages in Python. For more details, see the documentation on namespace packages

Testing

This repo also contains testing tools to exercise installation scenarios for namespace packages.

To run the scenarios:

$ pip install --upgrade setuptools virtualenv nox
$ nox --report report.json

nox will execute all of the scenarios and report whether the namespace packages are able to be imported successfully after installation. You can use python report_to_table.py to transform the report into a markdown-friendly table.

Current status

To see the status since the last time the scenarios were run open table.md.

Please note:

• Mixing package types within a single namespace is not supported. While it may work in some cases, it may also break depending on the software versions used, the install commands issued, or the order of commands. Don't mix types.
• The pkg_resources method of namspacing is no longer recommended and there is the desire to deprecate it. It should only be used in legacy namespaces that already rely on it.
• PEP 420 was accepted as part of Python 3.3. For wider compatibility (going back to Python 2.3), use the pkgutil method.
• Zipped eggs don't play nicely with namespace packaging, and may be implicitly installed by commands like python setup.py install. To prevent this, it is recommended that you set zip_safe=False in setup.py, as we do here.