Dependency file is not a file: ./requirements.txt

[Vuizur]

Thanks a lot for developing this project! I am very excited to try it.

I wanted to use it with a simple example project using poetry. I am trying to do it on Windows and have the following powershell file (build_with_pyapp.ps1).

# Export poetry requirements to requirements.txt
poetry export -f requirements.txt --output requirements.txt
# Now set environment variables properly in powershell
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_VERSION="0.1.0"
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME="pyappexample"
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_DEPENDENCY_FILE="./requirements.txt"
$env:CARGO_TARGET_DIR="./target" # For speeding up future builds
$env:PYAPP_EXEC_SCRIPT="./pyappexample/circle.py"
cargo install pyapp

Unfortunately I am getting the following error:

[<compiling stuff...>]
error: failed to run custom build command for `pyapp v0.13.0`

Caused by:
  process didn't exit successfully: `C:\Users\hanne\Documents\Programme\pyappexample\./target\release\build\pyapp-7c9fbca43121c7ae\build-script-build` (exit code: 101)
  --- stdout
  cargo:rustc-env=PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME=pyappexample
  cargo:rustc-env=PYAPP_PROJECT_VERSION=0.1.0

  --- stderr
  thread 'main' panicked at C:\Users\hanne\.cargo\registry\src\index.crates.io-6f17d22bba15001f\pyapp-0.13.0\build.rs:389:9:       


  Dependency file is not a file: ./requirements.txt


  note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace
warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...
error: failed to compile `pyapp v0.13.0`, intermediate artifacts can be found at `C:\Users\hanne\Documents\Programme\pyappexample\./target`.
To reuse those artifacts with a future compilation, set the environment variable `CARGO_TARGET_DIR` to that path.
(pyappexample-py3.10) PS C:\Users\hanne\Documents\Programme\pyappexample> 

I am executing the powershell script from the root directory, where my requirements.txt file is located.

Have a great day!

[ofek]

Sorry about that! I'll improve documentation but when you don't use the recommended installation mechanism file paths must be absolute.

[Vuizur]

Thanks a lot for the fast answer. That was in fact the reason. I agree that using cargo install is probably not the best, the resulting .exe will land in the Rust CLI tool directory, which is probably not what we want.

I created a new Powershell script that seems to work great. I would suggest adding it to the docs as an example, maybe it can be improved though. I think it would be great for beginners, I needed some time to get it to work 😅. One could maybe also make it compatible with Linux for easy cross-compilation.

# This is supposed to be executed in the root of the project

# Export poetry requirements to requirements.txt
poetry export -f requirements.txt --output requirements.txt
# Now set environment variables properly in powershell
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_VERSION="0.1.0"
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME="pyappexample"
# Set the path to the requirements.txt file, it is the absolute path of ./requirements.txt
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_DEPENDENCY_FILE="$((Get-Item -Path "./requirements.txt").FullName)"
$env:PYAPP_EXEC_SCRIPT="$((Get-Item -Path "./pyappexample/circle.py").FullName)"

if (!(Test-Path -Path "./pyapp-latest")) {
    # Download the zip file from the URL
    Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/ofek/pyapp/releases/latest/download/source.zip -OutFile pyapp-source.zip
    Expand-Archive -Path ./pyapp-source.zip -DestinationPath .
    Move-Item -Path ./pyapp-v* -Destination ./pyapp-latest
    Remove-Item -Path ./pyapp-source.zip
}
# Change the current directory to the extracted folder
Set-Location -Path ./pyapp-latest
cargo build --release
# Move Item and rename it to $env:PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME.exe, overwrite if exists
Move-Item target\release\pyapp.exe ..\$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME.exe -Force
# Change the current directory to the root of the project
Set-Location -Path ..

I haven't explored it beyond this toy example yet, but this seems significantly easier to use than pyinstaller so far, amazing that you created this.

[Vuizur]

I tested a bit more and discovered that one can't import functions from other .py files in the same folder as the main script. So if I have a parallel file helper.py with the function hello and try to import this from app.py, I will get ModuleNotFoundError: No module named helper. The same .py file is able to be executed by Python without problems.

[ofek]

Yes the easiest solution for that is to turn your scripts into a package. You can then either publish and install from PyPI or if private just build and point to the path to the wheel: https://ofek.dev/pyapp/latest/config/#project-embedding

[Vuizur]

Thanks for the hint. My final version of the powershell script now finally works! (I think.)

It is here:

# This is supposed to be executed in the root of the project

# The executable will execute this function when it starts
$env:PYAPP_EXEC_SPEC="pyappexample.circle:run"

$executable_name = "pyappexample"

# We are building the wheel with poetry
if (Test-Path -Path "./dist") {
    Remove-Item -Path ./dist -Recurse -Force
}
poetry build
# Get the full path of the wheel file in the dist directory
$wheel_file = (Get-Item -Path "./dist/*.whl").FullName
# Print wheel file path
Write-Host "Wheel file path: $wheel_file"
$env:PYAPP_PROJECT_PATH=$wheel_file

# if check if pyapp-latest folder not exists
if (!(Test-Path -Path "./pyapp-latest")) {
    # Download the zip file from the URL
    Invoke-WebRequest https://github.com/ofek/pyapp/releases/latest/download/source.zip -OutFile pyapp-source.zip
    # Extract the zip file to the temporary folder using Expand-Archive
    Expand-Archive -Path ./pyapp-source.zip -DestinationPath .
    # Move the extracted folder to the desired location and rename it
    Move-Item -Path ./pyapp-v* -Destination ./pyapp-latest
    Remove-Item -Path ./pyapp-source.zip
}
# Change the current directory to the extracted folder
Set-Location -Path ./pyapp-latest
cargo build --release
# Move Item and rename it to $env:PYAPP_PROJECT_NAME.exe, overwrite if exists
Move-Item target\release\pyapp.exe ..\$executable_name.exe -Force
# Change the current directory to the root of the project
Set-Location -Path ..

[ofek]

Nice!

[quinnhornblow]

Thanks for the powershell script, this is exactly what I was looking for!

When I try the single-project-embedded method or use this script I get this error:

  --- stdout
  cargo:rustc-env=PYAPP_PROJECT_DEPENDENCY_FILE=
  cargo:rustc-env=PYAPP__PROJECT_DEPENDENCY_FILE_NAME=

  --- stderr
  thread 'main' panicked at '

`; must only contain ASCII letters/digits, underscores, hyphens, and periods, and must begin and end with ASCII letters/digits.

Write-Host "Wheel file path: $wheel_file" prints a valid output to the .whl file.

Any ideas?

[Vuizur]

@quinnhornblow Does https://github.com/Vuizur/pyappexample work for you? If yes, the issue could be the executable name or the file path - does it contain any weird characters?

[quinnhornblow]

@quinnhornblow Does https://github.com/Vuizur/pyappexample work for you? If yes, the issue could be the executable name or the file path - does it contain any weird characters?

Yes that does work. I've created a fork of your example to replicate my issue here. The main change is that I'm using setuptools instead of poetry. I don't really know how they differ, setuptools is just what we use where I work. Changes:

1. Rewrite pyproject.toml to use setuptools.
2. update line 12 in build_with_pyapp.ps1 to python -m build

When running build_with_pyapp.ps1 the .whl file builds successfully, but process fails at 'cargo build' with the ASCII error mentioned above. Although the process does succeed if I run in debug mode without the --release tag.

[agriyakhetarpal]

Maybe I'm beating around a dead bush, but something similar came up in uv recently, see: https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/issues/2276, https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/issues/1666.

poetry export might not be creating files with UTF-8 encodings, so I would advise ensuring that the correct encoding is being used for the file to be parsable. This may or may not fix the issue at hand here.