dmahugh / python-exe-sample

example of how to create a standalone executable from a Python script, using PyInstaller

creating an executable from Python code

This repo provides an example of how to create a single-file Windows executable from a Python app using PyInstaller.

The general approach is largely based on Luke Lee's excellent Real Python article Using PyInstaller to Easily Distribute Python Applications. That article targets Linux platforms, and in this sample I've tweaked a few things to make it work on Windows. Note that PyInstaller doesn't support cross-platform builds, so you need to build the executable on the same platform you're deploying to.

For more information about this sample, see the blog post Building a Python EXE for Windows.

Installation

• Install Python (version 3.6 or higher).
• Clone this repo
• Recommended: create a virtual environment (e.g., python -m venv venv) and activate it.
• In the root folder of the cloned repo, use the command python -m pip install -r requirements.txt to install dependencies.
• Install the opcreader package with the command pip install --editable . in the root folder.

Usage

After you've cloned the repo and installed dependencies, you should be able to build an executable by executing the build command in build-windows-exe.bat. Console output is quite verbose, and when it's done running you will have an opcinfo.exe file in the dist subfolder.

To verify that the EXE is working correctly go into the distfolder and try running the executable against one of the test files. For example:

For command syntax, see the output of opcinfo -h.

Making changes

Since the opcreader package was installed with the --editable option, you can make changes to the source code and see them reflected immediately. Your changes won't be reflected in the .EXE file until you rebuild it, but you can run cli.py to run the latest version from source code. For example, use python cli.py -h to see the help screen.

Running tests

Use pytest to run the tests, as shown here:

Contributing

This project is a work in progress, and pull requests, feature requests and issues are welcome. Feel free to log an issue if you have a suggestion. Thanks!

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.