All packages in dev-python/* that are published on PyPI, must be
named to match their respective PyPI names, after performing
normalization specified in PEP 503, i.e. after replacing all runs
of dot, hyphen and underscore characters ([-_.]+) with a single
hyphen (-), and all uppercase letters with lowercase. Notably,
prefixes and suffixes such as python- must not be removed or added.
Since it is not uncommon for multiple packages to be published with very
similar names, it is crucial that all packages conform to this policy.
Gentoo-specific renames not only make it harder for users to find
the specific package they need but can also create name conflicts when
another package needs to be added. For example, adding
python-bugzilla package as dev-python/bugzilla would conflict
with the bugzilla package that is also present on PyPI.
The following table illustrates mapping PyPI package names to Gentoo package names.
PyPI package name Correct Gentoo package name ConfigArgParse dev-python/configargparseFlask dev-python/flaskflask-babel dev-python/flask-babelgithub3.py dev-python/github3-pypython-bugzilla dev-python/python-bugzillasphinx_pytest dev-python/sphinx-pytestsphinx-tabs dev-python/sphinx-tabstxAMQP dev-python/txamqpzope.interface dev-python/zope-interfacezstd dev-python/zstd
Note that the presented table already presents some inconsistency
in upstream package names. For example, Flask itself uses title
case name, while flask-babel has recently switched to lowercase.
Using normalized names for all packages avoids this inconsistency within
Gentoo. It may also be a good idea to point upstream to PEP 423
that specifies package naming recommendations.
PyPI automatically redirects to canonical package URLs. However, please
make sure to use these canonical URLs in HOMEPAGE, SRC_URI
and remote-id to avoid unnecessary redirects. These are reported
by pkgcheck scan --net.
When packaging software that is not published on PyPI, or adding multiple Gentoo packages corresponding to the same PyPI project, please bear potential future collisions in mind when naming it. Avoid names that are already used for other PyPI projects. When in doubt, prefer more verbose names that are less likely to be reused in the future. You may also suggest that upstream publishes to PyPI, or at least pushes an empty package to reserve the name.
Gentoo does not support building Python packages for Python 2 anymore. We are keeping PyPy2.7 (built stripped down, by default) to facilitate building PyPy3, and CPython 2.7 for PyPy2.7 bootstrap. Technically, they could still be used to run Python 2 code standalone, but this is discouraged and poses security risk.
The absolute minimum set of targets are the current default targets
found in profiles/base/make.defaults. However, developers
are strongly encouraged to test at least the next Python 3 version
in order to ease future transition, and preferably all future versions.
Marking for PyPy3 is optional. At this moment, we do not aim for wide coverage of PyPy3 support.
New Python implementations can generally be added to existing packages without a revision bump. This is because the new dependencies are added conditionally to new USE flags. Since the existing users can not have the new flags enabled, the dependencies do not need to be proactively added to existing installations.
This usually applies to stable packages as well as new Python targets
are generally use.stable.mask-ed. This means that stable users
will not be able to enable newly added flags and therefore the risk
of the change breaking stable systems is minimal.
A large part of the Python ecosystem is fairly consistent, making it feasible for (co-)maintenance by the Gentoo Python team.
As a rule of thumb, Python team is ready to maintain packages specific to the Python ecosystem and useful for the general population of Python programmers. This includes Python interpreters and tooling, packages purely providing Python modules and extensions and utilities specific to the Python language.
However, the Python team has limited manpower, therefore it may reject packages that have high maintenance requirements. As a rule, Python team does not accept packages without working tests.
If your package matches the above profile, feel free to ask a member of the Python project whether they would like to (co-)maintain the package. However, if you are not a member of the project, please do not add us without asking first.
When porting packages to a new EAPI, please take care not to port
the dependencies of Portage prematurely. This generally includes
app-portage/gemato, dev-python/setuptools and their recursive
dependencies.
Ideally, these ebuilds carry an appropriate note above their EAPI line, e.g.:
# please keep this ebuild at EAPI 7 -- sys-apps/portage dep
EAPI=7This does not apply to test dependencies — they are not strictly necessary to install a new Portage version.
The most efficient way to follow new Python package releases are the feeds found on PyPI. These can be found in the package's "Release history" tab, as "RSS feed".
The Gentoo Python project maintains a comprehensive list of PyPI feeds
for packages in dev-python/ category (as well as other important
packages maintained by the Python team) in OPML format.
The pip list --outdated command described in a followup section can also be used to verify installed packages against their latest PyPI releases. However, this is naturally limited to packages installed on the particular system, and does not account for newer versions being already available in the Gentoo repository.
Repology provides a comprehensive service for tracking distribution
package versions and upstream releases. The easiest ways to find Python
packages present in the Gentoo repository is to search by their
maintainer's e-mail or category (e.g. dev-python). When searching
by name, the majority of Python-specific package use python: prefix
in their Repology names.
Unfortunately, Repology is very susceptible to false positives. Examples of false positives include other distributions using custom version numbers, replacing packages with forks or simply Repology confusing different packages with the same name. If you find false positives, please use the 'Report' option to request a correction.
Please also note that Repology is unable to handle the less common
version numbers that do not have a clear mapping to Gentoo version
syntax (e.g. .post releases).
The Python landscape is changing dynamically, and therefore the test suites in packages — if not whole packages — often start failing early. For this reason, we recommend lowering the baseline stabilization delay to 14 days.
In addition to that:
- When stabilizing across a major version bump (e.g. from 1.1.x to 1.2.x), prefer waiting until the newest minor version becomes the stable candidate (i.e. do not stabilize from 1.1.4 to 1.2.0 if 1.2.1 is available). When stabilizing over a minor version bump (e.g. from 1.1.4 to 1.1.5), feel free to proceed immediately.
- If reverse dependencies block upgrade of a package (e.g. through
<dependencies), consider stabilizing the newest versions matching the restriction as well. The same is worth considering if upstream maintains multiple versions simultaneously with major API changes, even if there are no explicit<dependencies (e.g.dev-python/django). - If a new release is likely to cause major compatibility issues
(e.g. major releases of
dev-python/sphinx), consider delaying the stabilization and/or explicitly testing its reverse dependencies, in order to ensure that necessary<dependencies are added first. - Avoid stabilizing prereleases (alpha, beta and RC versions), unless it is necessary and upstream does not provide a final release for a significant time.
- Ideally, aim for tests to pass on all relevant architectures. Add deselects if necessary, as this will ensure that future stabilizations will be handled faster.
The recommended way of filing stabilization requests is to use
stablereq-* tools from app-portage/mgorny-dev-scripts package,
combined with pkgdev from dev-util/pkgdev.
To prepare the initial stabilization list and open it in an editor:
export PKGCHECK_ARGS="--stabletime 14"
git grep -l python@ '**/metadata.xml' |
cut -d/ -f1-2 |
grep -v dev-python/ |
xargs stablereq-make-list 'dev-python/*'Simultaneously, the following call can be used to run eshowkw
to display current keywords on all stabilization candidates:
export PKGCHECK_ARGS="--stabletime 14"
git grep -l python@ '**/metadata.xml' |
cut -d/ -f1-2 |
grep -v dev-python/ |
xargs stablereq-eshowkw 'dev-python/*'Edit the list as desirable, save into a file and then feed the file into pkgdev:
pkgdev bugs --auto-cc-arches=* $(<"${file_path}")The following actions are recommended to be run periodically on systems used to test Python packages. They could be run e.g. via post-sync actions.
pip check (provided by dev-python/pip) can be used to check
installed packages for missing dependencies and version conflicts:
$ python3.10 -m pip check
meson-python 0.6.0 requires ninja, which is not installed.
cx-freeze 6.11.1 requires patchelf, which is not installed.
openapi-spec-validator 0.4.0 has requirement openapi-schema-validator<0.3.0,>=0.2.0, but you have openapi-schema-validator 0.3.0.
cx-freeze 6.11.1 has requirement setuptools<=60.10.0,>=59.0.1, but you have setuptools 62.6.0.
This tool checks the installed packages for a single Python implementation only, so you need to run it for every installed interpreter separately.
In some cases the issues are caused by unnecessary version pins or upstream packages listing optional dependencies as obligatory. The preferred fix is to fix the package metadata rather than modifying the dependencies in ebuild.
Warning
pip does not support the Provides metadata, so it can
produce false positives about certifi dependency. Please ignore
these:
httpcore 0.15.0 requires certifi, which is not installed.
httpx 0.23.0 requires certifi, which is not installed.
sphobjinv 2.2.2 requires certifi, which is not installed.
requests 2.28.0 requires certifi, which is not installed.
pip list --outdated (provided by dev-python/pip) can be used
to check whether installed packages are up-to-date. This can help
checking for pending version bumps, as well as to detect wrong versions
in installed metadata:
$ pip3.11 list --outdated
Package Version Latest Type
------------------------ ----------------- ------- -----
dirty-equals 0 0.4 wheel
filetype 1.0.10 1.0.13 wheel
mercurial 6.1.3 6.1.4 sdist
node-semver 0.8.0 0.8.1 wheel
PyQt-builder 1.12.2 1.13.0 wheel
PyQt5 5.15.6 5.15.7 wheel
PyQt5-sip 12.10.1 12.11.0 sdist
PyQtWebEngine 5.15.5 5.15.6 wheel
Routes 2.5.1.dev20220522 2.5.1 wheel
selenium 3.141.0 4.3.0 wheel
sip 6.6.1 6.6.2 wheel
sphinxcontrib-websupport 1.2.4.dev20220515 1.2.4 wheel
uri-template 0.0.0 1.2.0 wheel
watchfiles 0.0.0 0.15.0 wheel
watchgod 0.0.dev0 0.8.2 wheel
Again, the action applies to a single Python implementation only and needs to be repeated for all of them.
Particularly note the packages with versions containing only zeroes in the above list — this is usually a sign that the build system does not recognize the version correctly. In some cases, the only working solution would be to sed the correct version in.
The additional dev suffix is usually appended via tag_build
option in setup.cfg. This causes the version to be considered
older than the actual release, and therefore the respective options need
to be stripped.
gpy-verify-deps (provided by app-portage/gpyutils) compares
the ebuild dependencies of all installed Python packages against their
metadata. It reports the dependencies that are potentially missing
in ebuilds, as well as dependencies potentially missing
[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]. For the latter, it assumes that all
dependencies listed in package metadata are used as Python modules.
$ gpy-verify-deps
[...]
=dev-python/tempest-31.0.0: missing dependency: dev-python/oslo-serialization [*]
=dev-python/tempest-31.0.0: missing dependency: dev-python/cryptography [*]
=dev-python/tempest-31.0.0: missing dependency: dev-python/stestr [*]
=dev-python/versioningit-2.0.0: missing dependency: dev-python/tomli [*]
=dev-python/versioningit-2.0.0: missing dependency: dev-python/importlib_metadata [python3.8 python3.9]
=dev-python/wstools-0.4.10-r1: missing dependency: dev-python/setuptools [*]
The check is done for all installed interpreters. The report indicates
whether the dependency upstream is unconditional ([*]) or specific
to a subset of Python implementations.
Similarly to pip check results, every dependency needs to be
verified. In many cases, upstream metadata lists optional or build-time
dependencies as runtime dependencies, and it is preferable to strip them
than to copy the mistakes into the ebuild.