Packaging from setuptools entry point

setuptools/pkg_resources have a feature called ​Automatic Script Creation. If your Python package is using this feature to create console or gui scripts, you will have a hard time packaging this with PyInstaller. The reason for this is that the generated script basically looks like this one:

from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
load_entry_point('setuptools==0.6c11', 'console_scripts', 'easy_install')()

So it does not import you module, but out-tasks this to load_entry_point. PyInstaller can not detect this.

The Recipe

Put the following snippet into you .spec file:

def Entrypoint(dist, group, name,
               scripts=None, pathex=None, hookspath=None, excludes=None):
    import pkg_resources
    scripts = scripts or []
    pathex = pathex or []
    # get the entry point
    ep = pkg_resources.get_entry_info(dist, group, name)
    # insert path of the egg at the verify front of the search path
    pathex = [ep.dist.location] + pathex
    # script name must not be a valid module name to avoid name clashes on import
    script_path = os.path.join(BUILDPATH, name+'-script.py')
    print "writjng script for entry point", dist, group, name
    fp = open(script_path, 'w')
    try:
        print >>fp, "import", ep.module_name
        print >>fp, "%s.%s()" % (ep.module_name, '.'.join(ep.attrs))
    finally:
        fp.close()
    return Analysis(scripts + [script_path], pathex, hookspath, excludes)

Now instead of running Analysis() on your script, simply run Entrypoint on the entry point definition:

a = Entrypoint('pdftools.pdfposter', 'console_scripts', 'pdfposter',
               [os.path.join(HOMEPATH,'support','_mountzlib.py'),
                os.path.join(CONFIGDIR,'support','useUnicode.py'),
                ])