PEP 566 – Metadata for Python Software Packages 2.1
- Author:
- Dustin Ingram <di at Python.org>
- BDFL-Delegate:
- Daniel Holth
- Discussions-To:
- Distutils-SIG list
- Status:
- Final
- Type:
- Standards Track
- Topic:
- Packaging
- Created:
- 01-Dec-2017
- Python-Version:
- 3.x
- Post-History:
- Replaces:
- 345
- Resolution:
- Distutils-SIG message
Table of Contents
Abstract
This PEP describes the changes between versions 1.2 and 2.1 of the core metadata specification for Python packages. Version 1.2 is specified in PEP 345.
It also changes to the canonical source for field specifications to theCore Metadata Specificationreference document, which includes specifics of the field names, and their semantics and usage.
Fields
The canonical source for the names and semantics of each of the supported metadata fields is theCore Metadata Specificationdocument.
Fields marked with “(Multiple use)” may be specified multiple times in a single PKG-INFO file. Other fields may only occur once in a PKG-INFO file. Fields marked with “(optional)” are not required to appear in a valid PKG-INFO file; all other fields must be present.
New in Version 2.1
Description-Content-Type (optional)
A string stating the markup syntax (if any) used in the distribution’s description, so that tools can intelligently render the description.
Historically, tools like PyPI assume that a package’s description is formatted inreStructuredText (reST),and fall back on plain text if the description is not valid reST.
The introduction of this field allows PyPI to support additional types of markup syntax, and not need to make this assumption.
The full specification for this field is defined in theCore Metadata Specification.
Provides-Extra (optional, multiple use)
A string containing the name of an optional feature. Must be a valid Python identifier. May be used to make a dependency conditional on whether the optional feature has been requested.
This introduction of this field allows package installation tools (such as
pip
) to determine which extras are provided by a given package, and so that
package publication tools (such astwine
) can check for issues with
environment markers which use extras.
The full specification for this field is defined in theCore Metadata Specification.
Changed in Version 2.1
Name
The specification for the format of this field is now identical to the distribution name specification defined inPEP 508.
Description
In addition to theDescription
header field, the distribution’s
description may instead be provided in the message body (i.e., after a
completely blank line following the headers, with no indentation or other
special formatting necessary).
Version Specifiers
Version numbering requirements and the semantics for specifying comparisons between versions are defined inPEP 440.Direct references as defined in PEP 440are also permitted as an alternative to version specifiers.
FollowingPEP 508,version specifiers no longer need to be surrounded by
parentheses in the fields Requires-Dist, Provides-Dist, Obsoletes-Dist or
Requires-External, so e.g.requests>=2.8.1
is now a valid value.
The recommended format is without parentheses, but tools parsing metadata should
also be able to handle version specifiers in parentheses. Further, public index
servers MAY prohibit strict version matching clauses or direct references in
these fields.
Usage of version specifiers is otherwise unchanged fromPEP 345.
Environment markers
Anenvironment markeris a marker that can be added at the end of a field after a semi-colon ( “;” ), to add a condition about the execution environment.
The environment marker format used to declare such a condition is defined in the environment markers section ofPEP 508.
Usage of environment markers is otherwise unchanged fromPEP 345.
JSON-compatible Metadata
It may be necessary to store metadata in a data structure which does not allow for multiple repeated keys, such as JSON.
The canonical method to transform metadata fields into such a data structure is as follows:
- The original key-value format should be read with
email.parser.HeaderParser
; - All transformed keys should be reduced to lower case. Hyphens should be replaced with underscores, but otherwise should retain all other characters;
- The transformed value for any field marked with “(Multiple-use” ) should be a single list containing all the original values for the given key;
- The
Keywords
field should be converted to a list by splitting the original value on commas; - The message body, if present, should be set to the value of the
description
key. - The result should be stored as a string-keyed dictionary.
Summary of Differences From PEP 345
- Metadata-Version is now 2.1.
- Fields are now specified via theCore Metadata Specification.
- Added two new fields:
Description-Content-Type
andProvides-Extra
- Acceptable values for the
Name
field are now specified as perPEP 508. - Added canonical method of transformation into JSON-compatible data structure.
References
This document specifies version 2.1 of the metadata format. Version 1.0 is specified inPEP 241. Version 1.1 is specified inPEP 314. Version 1.2 is specified inPEP 345. Version 2.0, while not formally accepted, was specified inPEP 426.
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Alyssa Coghlan and Thomas Kluyver for contributing to this PEP.
Source:https://github / Python /peps/blob/main/peps/pep-0566.rst
Last modified:2023-10-11 12:05:51 GMT