Recording installed projects

This document specifies a common format of recording information about Python projects installed in an environment. A common metadata format allows tools to query, manage or uninstall projects, regardless of how they were installed.

Almost all information is optional. This allows tools outside the Python ecosystem, such as Linux package managers, to integrate with Python tooling as much as possible. For example, even if an installer cannot easily provide a list of installed files in a format specific to Python tooling, it should still record the name and version of the installed project.

History and change workflow

The metadata described here was first specified in PEP 376, and later amended in PEP 627. It was formerly known as Database of Installed Python Distributions. Further amendments (except trivial language or typography fixes) must be made through the PEP process (see PEP 1).

While this document is the normative specification, these PEPs that introduce changes to it may include additional information such as rationales and backwards compatibility considerations.

目录 .dist-info

Each project installed from a distribution must, in addition to files, install a “.dist-info” directory located alongside importable modules and packages (commonly, the site-packages directory).

This directory is named as {name}-{version}.dist-info, with name and version fields corresponding to Core metadata specifications. Both fields must be normalized (see 包名称规范化 and PEP 440 for the definition of normalization for each field respectively), and replace dash (-) characters with underscore (_) characters, so the .dist-info directory always has exactly one dash (-) character in its stem, separating the name and version fields.

Historically, tools have failed to replace dot characters or normalize case in the name field, or not perform normalization in the version field. Tools consuming .dist-info directories should expect those fields to be unnormalized, and treat them as equivalent to their normalized counterparts. New tools that write .dist-info directories MUST normalize both name and version fields using the rules described above, and existing tools are encouraged to start normalizing those fields.

备注

The .dist-info directory’s name is formatted to unambigiously represent a distribution as a filesystem path. Tools presenting a distribution name to a user should avoid using the normalized name, and instead present the specified name (when needed prior to resolution to an installed package), or read the respective fields in Core Metadata, since values listed there are unescaped and accurately reflect the distribution. Libraries should provide API for such tools to consume, so tools can have access to the unnormalized name when displaying distrubution information.

This .dist-info directory can contain these files, described in detail below:

  • METADATA: contains project metadata

  • RECORD: records the list of installed files.

  • INSTALLER: records the name of the tool used to install the project.

The METADATA file is mandatory. All other files may be omitted at the installing tool’s discretion. Additional installer-specific files may be present.

备注

The 二进制分发格式 specification describes additional files that may appear in the .dist-info directory of a Wheel. Such files may be copied to the .dist-info directory of an installed project.

The previous versions of this specification also specified a REQUESTED file. This file is now considered a tool-specific extension, but may be standardized again in the future. See PEP 376 for its original meaning.

The METADATA file

The METADATA file contains metadata as described in the Core metadata specifications specification, version 1.1 or greater.

The METADATA file is mandatory. If it cannot be created, or if required core metadata is not available, installers must report an error and fail to install the project.

The RECORD file

The RECORD file holds the list of installed files. It is a CSV file containing one record (line) per installed file.

The CSV dialect must be readable with the default reader of Python’s csv module:

  • field delimiter: , (comma),

  • quoting char: " (straight double quote),

  • line terminator: either \r\n or \n.

Each record is composed of three elements: the file’s path, the hash of the contents, and its size.

The path may be either absolute, or relative to the directory containing the .dist-info directory (commonly, the site-packages directory). On Windows, directories may be separated either by forward- or backslashes (/ or \).

The hash is either an empty string or the name of a hash algorithm from hashlib.algorithms_guaranteed, followed by the equals character = and the digest of the file’s contents, encoded with the urlsafe-base64-nopad encoding (base64.urlsafe_b64encode(digest) with trailing = removed).

The size is either the empty string, or file’s size in bytes, as a base 10 integer.

For any file, either or both of the hash and size fields may be left empty. Commonly, entries for .pyc files and the RECORD file itself have empty hash and size. For other files, leaving the information out is discouraged, as it prevents verifying the integrity of the installed project.

If the RECORD file is present, it must list all installed files of the project, except .pyc files corresponding to .py files listed in RECORD, which are optional. Notably, the contents of the .dist-info directory (including the RECORD file itself) must be listed. Directories should not be listed.

To completely uninstall a package, a tool needs to remove all files listed in RECORD, all .pyc files (of all optimization levels) corresponding to removed .py files, and any directories emptied by the uninstallation.

Here is an example snippet of a possible RECORD file:

/usr/bin/black,sha256=iFlOnL32lIa-RKk-MDihcbJ37wxmRbE4xk6eVYVTTeU,220
../../../bin/blackd,sha256=lCadt4mcU-B67O1gkQVh7-vsKgLpx6ny1le34Jz6UVo,221
__pycache__/black.cpython-38.pyc,,
__pycache__/blackd.cpython-38.pyc,,
black-19.10b0.dist-info/INSTALLER,sha256=zuuue4knoyJ-UwPPXg8fezS7VCrXJQrAP7zeNuwvFQg,4
black-19.10b0.dist-info/LICENSE,sha256=nAQo8MO0d5hQz1vZbhGqqK_HLUqG1KNiI9erouWNbgA,1080
black-19.10b0.dist-info/METADATA,sha256=UN40nGoVVTSpvLrTBwNsXgZdZIwoKFSrrDDHP6B7-A0,58841
black-19.10b0.dist-info/RECORD,,
black.py,sha256=45IF72OgNfF8WpeNHnxV2QGfbCLubV5Xjl55cI65kYs,140161
blackd.py,sha256=JCxaK4hLkMRwVfZMj8FRpRRYC0172-juKqbN22bISLE,6672
blib2to3/__init__.py,sha256=9_8wL9Scv8_Cs8HJyJHGvx1vwXErsuvlsAqNZLcJQR0,8
blib2to3/__pycache__/__init__.cpython-38.pyc,,
blib2to3/__pycache__/pygram.cpython-38.pyc,sha256=zpXgX4FHDuoeIQKO_v0sRsB-RzQFsuoKoBYvraAdoJw,1512
blib2to3/__pycache__/pytree.cpython-38.pyc,sha256=LYLplXtG578ZjaFeoVuoX8rmxHn-BMAamCOsJMU1b9I,24910
blib2to3/pygram.py,sha256=mXpQPqHcamFwch0RkyJsb92Wd0kUP3TW7d-u9dWhCGY,2085
blib2to3/pytree.py,sha256=RWj3IL4U-Ljhkn4laN0C3p7IRdfvT3aIRjTV-x9hK1c,28530

If the RECORD file is missing, tools that rely on .dist-info must not attempt to uninstall or upgrade the package. (This does not apply to tools that rely on other sources of information, such as system package managers in Linux distros.)

The INSTALLER file

If present, INSTALLER is a single-line text file naming the tool used to install the project. If the installer is executable from the command line, INSTALLER should contain the command name. Otherwise, it should contain a printable ASCII string.

The file can be terminated by zero or more ASCII whitespace characters.

Here are examples of two possible INSTALLER files:

pip

MegaCorp Cloud Install-O-Matic

This value should be used for informational purposes only. For example, if a tool is asked to uninstall a project but finds no RECORD file, it may suggest that the tool named in INSTALLER may be able to do the uninstallation.

The direct_url.json file

This file MUST be created by installers when installing a distribution from a requirement specifying a direct URL reference (including a VCS URL).

This file MUST NOT be created when installing a distribution from an other type of requirement (i.e. name plus version specifier).

Its detailed specification is at Recording the Direct URL Origin of installed distributions.