Python Release Plugin

This release plugin is intended to be used in conjunction with setuptools to enable building and releasing a Python module with a single setuptools command release. Running the command results in the following:

• building the project (as would be accomplished via python setup.py clean bdist_wheel
• update the module version file
• updating the project's changelog to reflect the changes in the latest release
• git committing, tagging, and pushing the changes

How do I use it?

First things first: the pyrelaseplugin module is a release requirement. Strictly speaking, the setup_requires parameter to the setuptools setup method is intended to support exactly this kind of requirement. However, a problem arises; you can't import a module in setup.py before installing it. The solution -- imperfect as it is -- is to explicitly install the plugin add at the beginning of your setup.py script, as follows:

from subprocess import Popen
Popen(["pip", "install", "pyreleaseplugin"]).wait()

Alternatively, you can simply explicitly install the plugin from the command-line. This only has to be done once (for the associated virtual environment):

pip install pyreleaseplugin

Additionally, you must include it in your own module's setup.py script as a setup_requires dependency. Then the new setup commands need to be added to the cmd_class dictionary that gets passed to the setup function. The example snippet below illustrates how you would accomplish these first two steps:

from subprocess import Popen
Popen(["pip", "install", "pyreleaseplugin"]).wait()
from pyreleaseplugin import CleanCommand, ReleaseCommand, PyTest

setup(
    name="awesomepossum",
    version=__version__,
    author="Mr. Awesome Pants",
    author_email="mrawesomepants@theawesomefactory.com",
    description="Everything is awesome",
    license="TBD",
    keywords="awesomeness",
    setup_requires=["pyreleaseplugin"],
    cmdclass={"release": ReleaseCommand, "clean": CleanCommand, "test": PyTest})

In addition to setuptools command ReleaseCommand, you'll notice that the module includes a CleanCommand command and a PyTest command as well. These are for convenience. The clean command cleans more aggressively than the default setuptools equivalent, which is important for ensuring that we publish the correct artifacts. The test command allows us to execute tests using py.test with the following one-liner:

python setup.py test

Use the following command at your favorite Unix shell prompt to release your module:

python setup.py release

You may optionally include a version. If none is provided, the module's patch number will be incremented. You may also provide a description to include in the changelog. If none is provided, you will be prompted to enter one later.

The command also requires a configuration file to indicate where the changelog and version files lives in the project. An example of a simple configuration file called setup.cfg looks as follows:

[release]
version-file = awesomepossum/_version.py
changelog-file = CHANGELOG.md

The configuration file to be used can be specified as a command-line argument to the release command. If it is not specified, the default of setup.cfg is expected to exist in the current directory.

Developer's guide

Be sure to follow the best practices described in our Python Styleguide.

Setting up Python

Install Python3. The recommended way to do this is via Anaconda (the 3.x one, of course)

Create a Python3 virtual environment. The following command demonstrates how to create one with Anaconda:

conda create --name python-release-plugin python=3
source activate python-release-plugin
pip install -e .

Running tests

To run tests:

source activate python-release-plugin
python setup.py test

Running static analysis

We use prospector. To run locally:

source activate python-release-plugin
pip install prospector
prospector -s high

Build and release

The libraries are built and released from jenkins-build. See the jobs that start with the "python-release-plugin" prefix.

The build job is configured to fail if prospector finds any issues.