Introduction

setup.cfg is a cheekily named Python package which supports providing all of a Python distribution's metadata and build configuration via the setup.cfg file at the base of the distribution's source tree, rather than in the setup.py script.

The standard setup.py script is reduced to a stub which uses the setup.cfg package to convert the contents of the setup.cfg file to keyword arguments understood by the setup() function (in particular, the implementation provided by setuptools). Thus all the standard functionality of the setup.py script is still supported for tools and procedures that use it.

In other words, rather than defining your project in a source file, it is defined in an easy to parse, easy to read plain-text file. However, several hook points are still provided where Python functions can modify the build process if necessary. But efforts are made to minimize the need for this in the majority of Python projects.

This package was originally called d2to1, and was intended as a temporary translation layer between the original distutils and the ill-fated distutils2 project. distutils2 introduced the idea of providing all the project's metadata and build configuration via the setup.cfg file. This project takes the same idea but goes beyond what was fully supported by distutils2.

Usage

setup.cfg requires a distribution to use setuptools. Your distribution must include a specially-formatted "setup.cfg" file, and a minimal "setup.py" script. For details on writing the setup.cfg, see the distutils2 documentation. A simple sample can be found in setup.cfg's own setup.cfg file (it uses its own machinery to install itself):

[metadata]
name = setup.cfg
version = 0.9.0.dev
author = Erik M. Bray
author-email = embray@stsci.edu
summary = Reads a distributions's metadata from its setup.cfg file and passes it to setuptools.setup()
description-file =
    README.rst
    CHANGES.rst
home-page = http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setup.cfg
requires-dist = setuptools
classifier = 
    Development Status :: 5 - Production/Stable
    Environment :: Plugins
    Framework :: Setuptools Plugin
    Intended Audience :: Developers
    License :: OSI Approved :: BSD License
    Operating System :: OS Independent
    Programming Language :: Python
    Programming Language :: Python :: 3
    Topic :: Software Development :: Build Tools
    Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python Modules
    Topic :: System :: Archiving :: Packaging

[files]
packages =
    setup
    setup.cfg
    setup.cfg.extern
extra_files =
    CHANGES.rst
    LICENSE
    ez_setup.py

The minimal setup.py should look something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env python

try:
    from setuptools import setup
except ImportError:
    from ez_setup import use_setuptools
    use_setuptools()
    from setuptools import setup

setup(
    setup_requires=['setup.cfg'],
    setup_cfg=True
)

Note that it's important to specify setup_cfg=True or else the setup.cfg functionality will not be enabled. It is also possible to set setup_cfg='some_file.cfg' to specify the (relative) path of the setup.cfg file to use. But in general this functionality should not be necessary.

It should also work fine if additional arguments are passed to setup(), but it should be noted that they will be clobbered by any options in the setup.cfg file.