Maven equivalent for python

Question

Hi, I'm a java developer/python beginner, and I'm missing my maven features, particularly dependency management and build automation (I mean you don't build, but how to create a package for deployment?)

Is there a python equivalent to achieve these features?
Note: I use python 2.x

Thanks.

Answer 1

Python uses distutils and setuptools for dependency and packaging.

Heres a tutorial which explains basics: http://diveintopython3.org/packaging.html

In short, you will have setup.py file, which has dependency and script compilation/installation information, and you can build eggs, dist tarballs, binary tarballs, etc with it.

Answer 2

For deployment, in addition to distutils/setuptoos, also take a look at the pip package (uses setuptools underneath). It can rollback failed installations and also uninstall (something missing from easy_install/setuptools). In addition, you can specify dependencies through a requirements text file.