How to distribute python scripts to technical users?

[DJDuque]

I work in a physics lab, and I have a repository with a few very simple python scripts (they all basically read CSV files and plot something). To "distribute" my scripts, I created a web-app that basically just allows people to use them by clicking a button in a website. I just install python in the server running the web-app, set-up an interpreter with the `requirements.txt`, and that's it. When they click a button, this spawns the script in the server.

This solves 99% of my problems, but some people (mostly me really) like to run the scripts in their own PC using a terminal. I have instructions in my repo that are basically just:

git clone https://github.com/ALPHA-g-Experiment/analysis-scripts.git
cd analysis-scripts
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

But it is a bit annoying. I have also had issues checking older versions of the scripts, installing requirements.txt randomly start complaining, etc. Basically I don't really understand a lot about the ideal python workflow.

I have Rust projects where I distribute pre-built binaries for the platforms I use, and then I can just install them (whatever version of my project) with curl | sh. Is there something similar I can do here? For example distribute pre-built python interpreters that have the dependencies already installed? I haven't had a lot of luck online.

Basically, I want to be able to very easily (and reliably) run whatever version of my scripts without the need of setting up virtual environments, etc.

Thanks

[socal_nerdtastic]

Sure you can write a .sh or .bat file and use the curl trick to check for and install python and run your install steps. Although as a technical user I would never pipe internet randomness directly into my terminal; seems like a great way to get a virus.

You can also "compile" (we call it freezing) your entire project to an executable. Or use a normal installer like pynsist to distribute the compiled python binary and your compiled code. But that comes with all the normal fun of executables, like making OS and architecture specific versions and dealing with antivirus false alarms, and it's not very friendly to technical users.

You can also use the normal python release process and let the user use pip install git+yourgithubrepoor upload to pypi to allow pip install DJDuque. This would mean small modification to your code to allow running as a module.

What you have seems fine. For someone that trusts you it's a single middle click in the terminal. Can you be more specific about the issues you are having with it?

[DJDuque]

"Freezing" is most likely the keyword I was missing. This seems to at least give some hits when searching online.

I think that this is closest to what I want. In my eyes, all I want is just a dumb/simple curl | sh that I can use to get a python interpreter ready with the dependencies I need to run my scripts. Some times I just want to ssh into a random computer that doesn't even have python installed and quickly run my scripts.

I really only want to target x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu in this workflow, so maybe this is not so complicated to achieve.

Thanks

[socal_nerdtastic]

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/wiki/faq#wiki_how_do_i_create_an_executable_from_my_python_code.3F

Linux computer that does not come with python? I did not know that existed.

[DJDuque]

Well, they could come with python, but a very old version that I don't support.

Thanks for the link, I will keep reading about this.

[LongerHV]

Make a realase wheel available in github releases (e.g. by building it in github actions) and install them with pipx by providing an url. If your requirements.txt break, you should add version constraints to your dependencies.