pyinstaller-hooks-contrib: The PyInstaller community hooks repository

What happens when (your?) package doesn't work with PyInstaller? Say you have data files that you need at runtime? PyInstaller doesn't bundle those. Your package requires others which PyInstaller can't see? How do you fix that?

In summary, a "hook" file extends PyInstaller to adapt it to the special needs and methods used by a Python package. The word "hook" is used for two kinds of files. A runtime hook helps the bootloader to launch an app, setting up the environment. A package hook (there are several types of those) tells PyInstaller what to include in the final app - such as the data files and (hidden) imports mentioned above.

This repository is a collection of hooks for many packages, and allows PyInstaller to work with these packages seamlessly.

Installation

pyinstaller-hooks-contrib is automatically installed when you install PyInstaller, or can be installed with pip:

pip install -U pyinstaller-hooks-contrib

I can't see a hook for a-package

Either a-package works fine without a hook, or no-one has contributed hooks. If you'd like to add a hook, or view information about hooks, please see below.

Hook configuration (options)

Hooks that support configuration (options) and their options are documented in Supported hooks and options.

I want to help!

If you've got a hook you want to share then great! The rest of this page will walk you through the process of contributing a hook. If you've been here before then you may want to skip to the summary checklist

Unless you are very comfortable with git rebase -i, please provide one hook per pull request! If you have more than one then submit them in separate pull requests.

Setup

Fork this repo if you haven't already done so. (If you have a fork already but its old, click the Fetch upstream button on your fork's homepage.) Clone and cd inside your fork by running the following (replacing bob-the-barnacle with your github username):

git clone https://github.com/bob-the-barnacle/pyinstaller-hoooks-contrib.git
cd pyinstaller-hooks-contrib

Create a new branch for you changes (replacing foo with the name of the package): You can name this branch whatever you like.

git checkout -b hook-for-foo

If you wish to create a virtual environment then do it now before proceeding to the next step.

Install this repo in editable mode. This will overwrite your current installation. (Note that you can reverse this with pip install --force-reinstall pyinstaller-hooks-contrib).

pip install -e .
pip install -r requirements-test.txt
pip install flake8 pyinstaller

Note that on macOS and Linux, pip may by called pip3. If you normally use pip3 and python3 then use pip3 here too. You may skip the 2^nd line if you have no intention of providing tests (but please do provide tests!).

Add the hook

Standard hooks live in the _pyinstaller_hooks_contrib/stdhooks/ directory. Runtime hooks live in the _pyinstaller_hooks_contrib/rthooks/ directory. Simply copy your hook into there. If you're unsure if your hook is a runtime hook then it almost certainly is a standard hook.

Please annotate (with comments) anything unusual in the hook. Unusual here is defined as any of the following:

• Long lists of hiddenimport submodules. If you need lots of hidden imports then use collect_submodules('foo'). For bonus points, track down why so many submodules are hidden. Typical causes are:
  • Lazily loaded submodules (importlib.importmodule() inside a module __getattr__()).
  • Dynamically loaded backends.
  • Usage of Cython or Python extension modules containing import statements.
• Use of collect_all(). This function's performance is abismal and it is broken by design because it confuses packages with distributions. Check that you really do need to collect all of submodules, data files, binaries, metadata and dependencies. If you do then add a comment to say so (and if you know it - why). Do not simply use collect_all() just to future proof the hook.
• Any complicated os.path arithmetic (by which I simply mean overly complex filename manipulations).

Add the copyright header

All source files must contain the copyright header to be covered by our terms and conditions.

If you are adding a new hook (or any new python file), copy/paste the appropriate copyright header (below) at the top replacing 2021 with the current year.

GPL 2 header for standard hooks or other Python files.

# ------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) 2024 PyInstaller Development Team.
#
# This file is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public
# License (version 2.0 or later).
#
# The full license is available in LICENSE, distributed with
# this software.
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
# ------------------------------------------------------------------

Apache header for runtime hooks only. Again, if you're unsure if your hook is a runtime hook then it'll be a standard hook.

# ------------------------------------------------------------------
# Copyright (c) 2024 PyInstaller Development Team.
#
# This file is distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0
#
# The full license is available in LICENSE, distributed with
# this software.
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
# ------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are updating a hook, skip this step. Do not update the year of the copyright header - even if it's out of date.

Test

Having tests is key to our continuous integration. With them we can automatically verify that your hook works on all platforms, all Python versions and new versions of libraries as and when they are released. Without them, we have no idea if the hook is broken until someone finds out the hard way. Please write tests!!!

Some user interface libraries may be impossible to test without user interaction or a wrapper library for some web API may require credentials (and possibly a paid subscription) to test. In such cases, don't provide a test. Instead explain either in the commit message or when you open your pull request why an automatic test is impractical then skip on to the next step.

Write tests(s)

A test should be the least amount of code required to cause a breakage if you do not have the hook which you are contributing. For example if you are writing a hook for a library called foo which crashes immediately under PyInstaller on import foo then import foo is your test. If import foo works even without the hook then you will have to get a bit more creative. Good sources of such minimal tests are introductory examples from the documentation of whichever library you're writing a hook for. Package's internal data files and hidden dependencies are prone to moving around so tests should not explicitly check for presence of data files or hidden modules directly - rather they should use parts of the library which are expected to use said data files or hidden modules.

Tests generally live in tests/test_libraries.py. Navigate there and add something like the following, replacing all occurrences of foo with the real name of the library. (Note where you put it in that file doesn't matter.)

@importorskip('foo')
def test_foo(pyi_builder):
    pyi_builder.test_source("""

        # Your test here!
        import foo

        foo.something_fooey()

    """)

If the library has changed significantly over past versions then you may need to add version constraints to the test. To do that, replace the @importorskip("foo") with a call to PyInstaller.utils.tests.requires() (e.g. @requires("foo >= 1.4")) to only run the test if the given version constraint is satisfied. Note that @importorskip uses module names (something you'd import) whereas @requires uses distribution names (something you'd pip install) so you'd use @importorskip("PIL") but @requires("pillow"). For most packages, the distribution and packages names are the same.

Run the test locally

Running our full test suite is not recommended as it will spend a very long time testing code which you have not touched. Instead, run tests individually using either the -k option to search for test names:

pytest -k test_foo

Or using full paths:

pytest tests/test_libraries.py::test_foo

Pin the test requirement

Get the version of the package you are working with (pip show foo) and add it to the requirements-test-libraries.txt file. The requirements already in there should guide you on the syntax.

Run the test on CI/CD

CI/CD now triggers itself when you open a pull request. These instructions for triggering jobs manually are obsolete except in rare cases.

To test hooks on all platforms we use Github's continuous integration (CI/CD). Our CI/CD is a bit unusual in that it's triggered manually and takes arguments which limit which tests are run. This is for the same reason we filter tests when running locally - the full test suite takes ages.

First push the changes you've made so far.

git push --set-upstream origin hook-for-foo

Replace billy-the-buffalo with your Github username in the following url then open it. It should take you to the oneshot-test actions workflow on your fork. You may be asked if you want to enable actions on your fork - say yes.

https://github.com/billy-the-buffalo/pyinstaller-hooks-contrib/actions/workflows/oneshot-test.yml

Find the Run workflow button and click on it. If you can't see the button, select the Oneshot test tab from the list of workflows on the left of the page and it should appear. A dialog should appear containing one drop-down menu and 5 line-edit fields. This dialog is where you specify what to test and which platforms and Python versions to test on. Its fields are as follows:

1. A branch to run from. Set this to the branch which you are using (e.g. hook-for-foo),
2. Which package(s) to install and their version(s). Which packages to test are inferred from which packages are installed. You can generally just copy your own changes to the requirements-test-libraries.txt file into this box.
   • Set to foo to test the latest version of foo,
   • Set to foo==1.2, foo==2.3 (note the comma) to test two different versions of foo in separate jobs,
   • Set to foo bar (note the lack of a comma) to test foo and bar in the same job,
3. Which OS or OSs to run on
   • Set to ubuntu to test only ubuntu,
   • Set to ubuntu, macos, windows (order is unimportant) to test all three OSs.
4. Which Python version(s) to run on
   • Set to 3.9 to test only Python 3.9,
   • Set to 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 to test all currently supported version of Python.
5. The final two options can generally be left alone.

Hit the green Run workflow button at the bottom of the dialog, wait a few seconds then refresh the page. Your workflow run should appear.

We'll eventually want to see a build (or collection of builds) which pass on all OSs and all Python versions. Once you have one, hang onto its URL - you'll need it when you submit the pull request. If you can't get it to work - that's fine. Open a pull request as a draft, show us what you've got and we'll try and help.

Triggering CI/CD from a terminal

If you find repeatedly entering the configuration into Github's Run workflow dialog arduous then we also have a CLI script to launch it. Run python scripts/cloud-test.py --help which should walk you through it. You will have to enter all the details again but, thanks to the wonders of terminal history, rerunning a configuration is just a case of pressing up then enter.

Run Linter

We use flake8 to enforce code-style. pip install flake8 if you haven't already then run it with the following.

flake8

No news is good news. If it complains about your changes then do what it asks then run it again. If you don't understand the errors it come up with them lookup the error code in each line (a capital letter followed by a number e.g. W391).

Please do not fix flake8 issues found in parts of the repository other than the bit that you are working on. Not only is it very boring for you, but it is harder for maintainers to review your changes because so many of them are irrelevant to the hook you are adding or changing.

Add a news entry

Please read news/README.txt before submitting you pull request. This will require you to know the pull request number before you make the pull request. You can usually guess it by adding 1 to the number of the latest issue or pull request. Alternatively, submit the pull request as a draft, then add, commit and push the news item after you know your pull request number.

Summary

A brief checklist for before submitting your pull request:

• All new Python files have the appropriate copyright header.
• You have written a news entry.
• Your changes satisfy the linter (run flake8).
• You have written tests (if possible) and pinned the test requirement.

Submit the pull request

Once you've done all the above, run git push --set-upstream origin hook-for-foo then go ahead and create a pull request. If you're stuck doing any of the above steps, create a draft pull request and explain what's wrong - we'll sort you out... Feel free to copy/paste commit messages into the Github pull request title and description. If you've never done a pull request before, note that you can edit it simply by running git push again. No need to close the old one and start a new one.

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If you plan to contribute frequently or are interested in becoming a developer, send an email to legorooj@protonmail.com to let us know.