Problem accessing config files within a Python egg

Question

I have a Python project that has the following structure:

package1
  class.py
  class2.py
  ...
package2
  otherClass.py
  otherClass2.py
  ...
config
  dev_settings.ini
  prod_settings.ini

I wrote a setup.py file that converts this into an egg with the same file structure. (When I examine it using a zip program the structure seems identical.) The funny thing is, when I run the Python code from my IDE it works fine and can access the config files; but when I try to run it from a different Python script using the egg, it can't seem to find the config files in the egg. If I put the config files into a directory relative to the calling Python script (external to the egg), it works - but that sort of defeats the purpose of having a self-contained egg that has all the functionality of the program and can be called from anywhere. I can use any classes/modules and run any functions from the egg as long as they don't use the config files... but if they do, the egg can't find them and so the functions don't work.

Any help would be really appreciated! We're kind of new to the egg thing here and don't really know where to start.

Answer 1

The problem is, the config files are not files anymore - they're packaged within the egg. It's not easy to find the answer in the docs, but it is there. From the setuptools developer's guide:

Typically, existing programs manipulate a package's __file__ attribute in order to find the location of data files. However, this manipulation isn't compatible with PEP 302-based import hooks, including importing from zip files and Python Eggs.

To access them, you need to follow the instructions for the Resource Management API.

In my own code, I had this problem with a logging configuration file. I used the API successfully like this:

_log_config_file = 'logging.conf'
_log_config_location = resource_stream(__name__, _log_config_file)
logging.config.fileConfig(_log_config_location)
_log = logging.getLogger('package.module')

Answer 2

See Setuptools' discussion of accessing pacakged data files at runtime. You have to get at your configuration file a different way if you want the script to work inside an egg. Also, for that to work, you may need to make your config directory a Python package by tossing in an empty init.py file.