not-a-package-manager

utilities to facilitate working with codebases that don't ascribe to normal package management paradigms, e.g. ML research code that can be cloned but not installed.

DISCLAIMER: This tool encapsulates what could be considered "best practices" for... bad practices. Simply invoking this package should probably be considered a code smell and shouldn't come anywhere near production code.

Installation

pip install napm

Usage

"Installing" packages

To "install" a codebase from a git repo:

import napm

url = "https://github.com/crowsonkb/cloob-training"
napm.pseudoinstall_git_repo(url, package_name='cloob')

import cloob

After installation, importing napm will make the "installed" packages available again

import napm
import cloob

The default behavior is to not add the root dir of the git repo to the PYTHON_PATH. If you need this additional step, you can specify it like this:

import napm
url = 'https://github.com/facebookresearch/SLIP'
napm.pseudoinstall_git_repo(url, add_install_dir_to_path=True)

import SLIP
from SLIP.models import SLIP_VITB16, SLIP, SLIP_VITL16

Updating packages

napm.update_package('package_name')

Under the hood, updating a package is just a call to 'git pull'.

If you want, you can set napm to fetch the most recent version of the repository automatically prior to attempting to import it:

napm.pseudoinstall_git_repo(url, package_name='package_name', auto_update=True)

This isn't advisable, but hey: if you're using napm at all, you're already shooting from the hip anyway. If you change your mind and decide that was a bad idea, you can always turn auto-update off again:

napm.set_autoupdate_flag(package_name='package_name', value=False)

Removing packages

napm.remove_package('package_name', env_name='my_env')

To flush a whole 'environment' (e.g. as part of an uninstall sequence):

napm.remove_env(env_name='my_env')

Who is this for?

If you are "installing" pacakages using code that looks something like:

try:
    import packageName
except:
    !git clone https://github.com/publisher/packageName
    import sys
    sys.path.append('.')

this tool is intended to replace that sort of thing.

How it works

The tool assigns a subdirectory of the user's cache as the download location for codebases that need to be imported but can't be installed. "Installing" then clones the target git repo into this subdirectory if it doesn't already exist. Code "installed" in this way will now be available to any python environment into which napm is installed.

Why is this better?

• Replaces certain patterns that can lead to bug-prone code
• Keeps your PYTHON_PATH variable clean
• Importing tools will no longer be sensitive to or contingent on the current working directory
• Frequently reused dependencies won't need to be downloaded repeated
• You won't need to have multiple copies of the same codebase sprinkled all over your system

Dev installation

!pip install poetry
!git clone https://github.com/dmarx/not-a-package-manager
!cd not-a-package-manager; git pull origin; poetry build
!pip uninstall -y napm; pip install not-a-package-manager/dist/napm*.whl

Related projects

• https://github.com/fatiando/pooch