Support setuptools (setup.py)

[show0k]

Hi,
I just see this great project but I was disappointed when I see it lacks setuptools support.
I use jupyter notebooks as code examples for my libraries. As I assume that the user has installed my library all imports of my code in the notebook didn't take account of the path of this code...
I could modify my notebooks to make it work with binder, but I think it could be very convenient for many people too add simple "python setup.py install in your docker file.

[freeman-lab]

Thanks for your interest @show0k ! Using Binders as examples for your code is a great use case! Often we've done this with repos that are in PyPi, so hadn't run into this.

We could definitely look at adding support for a setup.py, what do you think @andrewosh ? The other option is to use requirements.txt and just list your requirements as packages to be installed from git. The syntax looks like pip install git+git://... read here for more:

https://pip.pypa.io/en/latest/reference/pip_install/#vcs-support

Maybe give that a try and let us know how it goes? One advantage of that approach is that it lets you combine a dependency on your own library with other libraries that might be used in your notebooks (but are not necessarily requirements of your library itself).

[nthiery]

I just stumbled on this issue after having created binder-project/binder-docs#5.
A trick that worked for me is to put a trivial requirements.txt file containing:

-e .

If this is confirmed as a proper way to go, I guess documenting this trick -- or any variant -- is good enough to close this issue.

[show0k]

Thanks !
I'm closing the issue.