27.15.1.11. packaging.pypi.dist — Classes representing query results

Information coming from the indexes is held in instances of the classes defined in this module.

Keep in mind that each project (eg. FooBar) can have several releases (eg. 1.1, 1.2, 1.3), and each of these releases can be provided in multiple distributions (eg. a source distribution, a binary one, etc).

27.15.1.11.1. ReleaseInfo

Each release has a project name, version, metadata, and related distributions.

This information is stored in ReleaseInfo objects.

class packaging.pypi.dist.ReleaseInfo

27.15.1.11.2. DistInfo

DistInfo is a simple class that contains information related to distributions; mainly the URLs where distributions can be found.

class packaging.pypi.dist.DistInfo

27.15.1.11.3. ReleasesList

The dist module provides a class which works with lists of ReleaseInfo classes; used to filter and order results.

class packaging.pypi.dist.ReleasesList

27.15.1.11.4. Example usage

27.15.1.11.4.1. Build a list of releases and order them

Assuming we have a list of releases:

>>> from packaging.pypi.dist import ReleasesList, ReleaseInfo
>>> fb10 = ReleaseInfo("FooBar", "1.0")
>>> fb11 = ReleaseInfo("FooBar", "1.1")
>>> fb11a = ReleaseInfo("FooBar", "1.1a1")
>>> ReleasesList("FooBar", [fb11, fb11a, fb10])
>>> releases.sort_releases()
>>> releases.get_versions()
['1.1', '1.1a1', '1.0']
>>> releases.add_release("1.2a1")
>>> releases.get_versions()
['1.1', '1.1a1', '1.0', '1.2a1']
>>> releases.sort_releases()
['1.2a1', '1.1', '1.1a1', '1.0']
>>> releases.sort_releases(prefer_final=True)
>>> releases.get_versions()
['1.1', '1.0', '1.2a1', '1.1a1']

27.15.1.11.4.2. Add distribution related information to releases

It’s easy to add distribution information to releases:

>>> from packaging.pypi.dist import ReleasesList, ReleaseInfo
>>> r = ReleaseInfo("FooBar", "1.0")
>>> r.add_distribution("sdist", url="http://example.org/foobar-1.0.tar.gz")
>>> r.dists
{'sdist': FooBar 1.0 sdist}
>>> r['sdist'].url
{'url': 'http://example.org/foobar-1.0.tar.gz', 'hashname': None, 'hashval':
None, 'is_external': True}

27.15.1.11.4.3. Getting attributes from the dist objects

To abstract querying information returned from the indexes, attributes and release information can be retrieved directly from dist objects.

For instance, if you have a release instance that does not contain the metadata attribute, it can be fetched by using the “fetch_metadata” method:

>>> r = Release("FooBar", "1.1")
>>> print r.metadata
None # metadata field is actually set to "None"
>>> r.fetch_metadata()
<Metadata for FooBar 1.1>

It’s possible to retrieve a project’s releases (fetch_releases), metadata (fetch_metadata) and distributions (fetch_distributions) using a similar work flow.

Internally, this is possible because while retrieving information about projects, releases or distributions, a reference to the client used is stored which can be accessed using the objects _index attribute.