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Using AppVeyor to distribute Python wheels

#appveyor #programming #python #wheels
2014-09-21 ⋅ Comments

Wheels are the future of distribution. No more messy broken setup.py scripts or need for a compiler to build C extensions! Of course, this has a glaring issue: a Linux user can't build Wheels of their C extension for Windows. Unless, of course, you use Travis CI , install the MinGW compilers, define the compiler variables, etc. However, there is an easier way: AppVeyor .

AppVeyor uses a simple configuration file that uses YAML. Here is what the config file for your project might look like:

install:
  - ps: (new-object net.webclient).DownloadFile('https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py', 'C:/get-pip.py')
  - C:/Python34/python.exe C:/get-pip.py
  - C:/Python34/Scripts/pip.exe install wheel
build_script:
  - python setup.py build
test_script:
  - C:/Python34/Scripts/py.test
deploy_script:
  - python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel upload

It goes into a file named appveyor.yml. Here's what's going on, one piece at a time:

install:

The install section defines commands to run for installation.

- ps: (new-object net.webclient).DownloadFile('https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py', 'C:/get-pip.py')
- C:/Python34/python.exe C:/get-pip.py

These two lines install pip. The first uses PowerShell to download the install script; the second runs it.

- C:/Python34/Scripts/pip.exe install wheel
- C:/Python34/Scripts/pip.exe install pytest

The first line installs wheel. The second is optional; it just installs pytest (a unit testing framework). I put it here as an example of installing other packages with pip.

build_script:
  - C:/Python34/python.exe setup.py build

The commands to build your Python project go here.

test_script:
  - C:/Python34/Scripts/py.test

Whatever you do to run your project tests go here.

deploy_script:
  - python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel upload

This is the magic part; it runs bdist_wheel and uploads the result.

That's it! Pretty simple, no? Now, you can build Windows binary wheels easily.

EDIT: Someone pointed out in the comments that I completely ignored PyPI authentication. Luckily, it's a simple addition.

  1. Go to your AppVeyor account and click your username in the top-right corner. Select "Encrypt Data" in the menu that appears.

    The encryption dropdown

  2. Type your password in the box and click "Encrypt". AppVeyor should give you an encrypted value. Copy it.

    The encryption screen

  3. Now, add this to the end of appveyor.yml:

    environment:
  password:
    secure:

    replacing value with the value you copied from the Encrypt Data page. Then, change the deploy_script part to read this:

    deploy_script:
  - "echo [pypi] > %USERPROFILE%\\.pypirc"
  - "echo username: user >> %USERPROFILE%\\.pypirc"
  - "echo password: %password% >> %USERPROFILE%\\.pypirc"
  - python setup.py sdist bdist_wheel upload

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