This project shows how to package data files within a Python distribution, and has some example code for reading the data files. To build this distribution, create a venv with build installed and then execute

python -m build

The distributions (an sdist .tar.gz and a bdist .whl) will be written to ./dist/ subdirectory. To test it out, install the distribution and run the console script resources-example.

Here's a compatibility summary of the five approaches demonstrated:

Module	Description	In stdlib?	Works on Py2?	Works on Py3?	Works in zipfile?	Run as script?*
example1.py	os.path.join	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
example2.py	pkgutil	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
example3.py	pkg_resources	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
example4.py	importlib.resources	deprecated	no	yes (3.7+)	yes	yes
example5.py	importlib_resources	yes (3.9+)	yes	yes	yes	yes

* "Run as script" means executing the submodule directly, e.g. python myapp/example2.py. Note that Guido considers this an anti-pattern

If you are interested in creating an executable zip from source, you can use stdlib zipapp utility (Python 3.5+):

python3 -m zipapp --compress /path/to/resources-example --main="myapp:main" --output=myapp.zip

And now you can run the zip directly with the interpreter (any Python version):

python myapp.zip