Plugins are a feature to modify the way how Nuitka compiles Python programs in extremely flexible ways.
Plugins can automatically include data files and additional shared libraries, import modules which are not detectable by source code analysis, modify or extend the to-be-compiled source code, gather statistics, change Nuitka's parameter defaults and much more.
Any number of plugins may be used in each compilation.
Plugins come in two variants: standard plugins and user plugins.
User plugins are not part of the Nuitka package: they must be provided otherwise. To use them in a compilation, Nuitka must be able to find them using their path / filename. If are specified, Nuitka will activate them before it activates any of its standard plugins.
Standard plugins are part of the Nuitka package and thus always available.
Nuitka also differentiates between "mandatory" and "optional" .
Mandatory are always enabled and "invisible" to the user. Their behaviour cannot be influenced other than by modifying them.
Optional must be enabled via the command line parameter --enable-plugin=name
, with an identifying string name
. Even when not enabled however, can detect, whether their use might have been "forgotten" and issue an appropriate warning.
Where appropriate, the behaviour of optional (like with ) can be controlled via options (see "Using Plugin Options").
Almost all are relevant for standalone mode only. Specifying all the right plugins is up to the user and critical for success: For example, if you are using package numpy and forget to activate that plugin, then your compile will
- end with no error, but a warning about missing numpy support,
- not generate a working binary.
Also:
- are able to programmatically enable , the reverse is not possible. The user must know the requirements of his script and specify all appropriate , including any required options (see below).
- There is currently no way to automatically react to interdependencies. For example, when compiling a script using the tensorflow package in standalone mode, you must enable (at least) both, the
tensorflow
and thenumpy
plugin. - Like every compiler, Nuitka cannot always decide, whether a script will actually execute an import statement. This knowledge must be provided by you, e.g. with PGO information that is going to be supported.
Create a list of available optional giving their identifier together with a short description via --plugin-list
:
The following optional standard plugins are available in Nuitka:
anti-bloat Patch stupid imports out of widely used library modules source codes.
data-files
data-hiding Commercial: Hide program constant Python data from offline inspection of created binaries.
datafile-inclusion Commercial: Load file trusted file contents at compile time.
dill-compat
enum-compat
ethereum Commercial: Required for ethereum packages in standalone mode
eventlet Support for including 'eventlet' dependencies and its need for 'dns' package monkey patching
gevent Required by the gevent package
gi Support for GI dependencies
glfw Required for glfw in standalone mode
implicit-imports
multiprocessing Required by Python's multiprocessing module
numpy Required for numpy, scipy, pandas, matplotlib, etc.
pbr-compat
pkg-resources Resolve version numbers at compile time.
pmw-freezer Required by the Pmw package
pylint-warnings Support PyLint / PyDev linting source markers
pyqt5 Required by the PyQt5 package.
pyside2 Required by the PySide2 package.
pyside6 Required by the PySide6 package for standalone mode.
pyzmq Required for pyzmq in standalone mode
tensorflow Required by the tensorflow package
tk-inter Required by Python's Tk modules
torch Required by the torch / torchvision packages
traceback-encryption Commercial: Encrypt tracebacks (de-Jong-Stacks).
windows-service Commercial: Create Windows Service files
Note
This list is continuously growing and most likely out of date.
- Required by the dill module. Dill extends Python's pickle module for serializing and de-serializing objects.
- Options: none.
- Required by the eventlet package. Eventlet is a concurrent networking library.
- Options: none.
- Required by the gevent package. Gevent is a coroutine-based Python networking library that uses greenlet to provide a high-level synchronous API.
- Options: none.
- Required for numpy, scipy, pandas, matplotlib, xarray, sklearn, skimage, and most other scientific packages.
- Options: Can disable some of the packages handled, e.g.
--enable-plugin=numpy --noinclude-scipy --noinclude-matplotlib
which disables the handling to make these actually usable.
- Required by the Pmw package. Pmw is a toolkit for building high-level compound widgets.
- Options: none.
- Support PyLint / PyDev linting source markers. Python static code analysis tools which help enforcing a coding standard.
- Options: none
- Required by the PySide and PyQt and GUI packages, only one can be activated at a time.
- Options: With
--include-qt-plugins
you can select which Qt plugins to include. By default a relatively small set, calledsensible
that is defined in the code is include, but you can add more, and evenall
, which will add a terrible amount of dependencies though. But without the proper Qt plugins, functionality of Qt might be broken, crashes can occur, or appearance can be inferior. - These plugins also inhibit other GUI frameworks from being included in standalone distributions.
- Required by the tensorflow package. TensorFlow is an open source machine learning framework for everyone. Note that this package requires numpy and potentially many other packages.
- Options: none.
- Required by Python's Tk modules.
- Options: Can override the automatic detection of Tcl and Tk directories with
--tk-library-dir
and--tcl-library-dir
but that should not be needed.
- Required by the torch and torchvision packages. Tensors and Dynamic neural networks in Python with strong GPU acceleration. Torchvision requires numpy.
- Options: none.