PyDist files

DISTNAME [VRANGE] [DEPENDENCY][; [PEP386] [RULES]]

PyDist files help tools like dh_python2 to translate Python dependencies (from setup.py's install_requires or egg's requires.txt file) to Debian dependencies.

Required fields:

DISTNAME

Python distribution name (you can find it at the beginning of .egg-info file/directory name that your package provides).

Examples:
  • SQLAlchemy
  • Jinja2
  • numpy

Optional fields:

VRANGE

Python version or version range the line applies to.

Examples:
  • 2.6 (Python 2.6 only)
  • 2.5- (Python 2.5 and newer)
  • 2.5-2.7 (Python 2.5 or 2.6)
  • -2.7 (Python 2.6 or older)

DEPENDENCY

Debian dependency, multiple packages or versions are allowed. If not set, given Python distribution name will be ignored.

Examples:
  • python-mako
  • python-jinja2 | python (>= 2.6)
  • python-sqlalchemy (>= 0.5), python-sqlalchemy (<< 0.6)

PEP386

Standards flag: upstream uses versioning schema described in PEP 386.

RULES

Rules needed to translate upstream version to Debian one. If PEP386 is set, its rules will be applied later. Multiple rules are allowed, separate them with a space.

Examples:
  • s/^/2:/
  • s/alpha/~alpha/ s/^/1:/

Notes:

You can use multiple lines if binary package provides more than one Python distribution or if you want to specify different dependencies for each Python version or version range.

If you use dh_python2, it will install debian/binary_package_name.pydist file to /usr/share/python/dist/binary_package_name automatically.

Complete examples:

  • SQLAlchemy python-sqlalchemy (>= 0.5), python-sqlalchemy (<< 0.6)
  • Mako python-mako; PEP386
  • foo -2.5 python-oldfoo; s/^/3:/
  • foo 2.5- python-foo; PEP386
  • Bar 2.6-