# Using `importlib.metadata`

Note

This functionality is provisional and may deviate from the usual version semantics of the standard library.

`importlib.metadata` is a library that provides for access to installed package metadata. Built in part on Python’s import system, this library intends to replace similar functionality in the entry point API and metadata API of `pkg_resources`. Along with `importlib.resources` in Python 3.7 and newer (backported as importlib_resources for older versions of Python), this can eliminate the need to use the older and less efficient `pkg_resources` package.

By “installed package” we generally mean a third-party package installed into Python’s `site-packages` directory via tools such as pip. Specifically, it means a package with either a discoverable `dist-info` or `egg-info` directory, and metadata defined by PEP 566 or its older specifications. By default, package metadata can live on the file system or in zip archives on `sys.path`. Through an extension mechanism, the metadata can live almost anywhere.

## Overview

Let’s say you wanted to get the version string for a package you’ve installed using `pip`. We start by creating a virtual environment and installing something into it:

    $ python3 -m venv example
    $ source example/bin/activate
    (example) $ pip install wheel

You can get the version string for `wheel` by running the following:

    (example) $ python
    >>> from importlib.metadata import version
    >>> version('wheel')
    '0.32.3'

You can also get the set of entry points keyed by group, such as `console_scripts`, `distutils.commands` and others. Each group contains a sequence of EntryPoint objects.

You can get the metadata for a distribution:

    >>> list(metadata('wheel'))
    ['Metadata-Version', 'Name', 'Version', 'Summary', 'Home-page', 'Author', 'Author-email', 'Maintainer', 'Maintainer-email', 'License', 'Project-URL', 'Project-URL', 'Project-URL', 'Keywords', 'Platform', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Classifier', 'Requires-Python', 'Provides-Extra', 'Requires-Dist', 'Requires-Dist']

You can also get a distribution’s version number, list its constituent files, and get a list of the distribution’s Distribution requirements.

## Functional API

This package provides the following functionality via its public API.

### Entry points

The `entry_points()` function returns a dictionary of all entry points, keyed by group. Entry points are represented by `EntryPoint` instances; each `EntryPoint` has a `.name`, `.group`, and `.value` attributes and a `.load()` method to resolve the value. There are also `.module`, `.attr`, and `.extras` attributes for getting the components of the `.value` attribute:

    >>> eps = entry_points()
    >>> list(eps)
    ['console_scripts', 'distutils.commands', 'distutils.setup_keywords', 'egg_info.writers', 'setuptools.installation']
    >>> scripts = eps['console_scripts']
    >>> wheel = [ep for ep in scripts if ep.name == 'wheel'][0]
    >>> wheel
    EntryPoint(name='wheel', value='wheel.cli:main', group='console_scripts')
    >>> wheel.module
    'wheel.cli'
    >>> wheel.attr
    'main'
    >>> wheel.extras
    []
    >>> main = wheel.load()
    >>> main
    <function main at 0x103528488>

The `group` and `name` are arbitrary values defined by the package author and usually a client will wish to resolve all entry points for a particular group. Read the setuptools docs for more information on entry points, their definition, and usage.

### Distribution metadata

Every distribution includes some metadata, which you can extract using the `metadata()` function:

    >>> wheel_metadata = metadata('wheel')

The keys of the returned data structure 1 name the metadata keywords, and their values are returned unparsed from the distribution metadata:

    >>> wheel_metadata['Requires-Python']
    '>=2.7, !=3.0.*, !=3.1.*, !=3.2.*, !=3.3.*'

### Distribution versions

The `version()` function is the quickest way to get a distribution’s version number, as a string:

    >>> version('wheel')
    '0.32.3'

### Distribution files

You can also get the full set of files contained within a distribution. The `files()` function takes a distribution package name and returns all of the files installed by this distribution. Each file object returned is a `PackagePath`, a `pathlib.Path` derived object with additional `dist`, `size`, and `hash` properties as indicated by the metadata. For example:

    >>> util = [p for p in files('wheel') if 'util.py' in str(p)][0]
    >>> util
    PackagePath('wheel/util.py')
    >>> util.size
    859
    >>> util.dist
    <importlib.metadata._hooks.PathDistribution object at 0x101e0cef0>
    >>> util.hash
    <FileHash mode: sha256 value: bYkw5oMccfazVCoYQwKkkemoVyMAFoR34mmKBx8R1NI>

Once you have the file, you can also read its contents:

    >>> print(util.read_text())
    import base64
    import sys
    ...
    def as_bytes(s):
        if isinstance(s, text_type):
            return s.encode('utf-8')
        return s

In the case where the metadata file listing files (RECORD or SOURCES.txt) is missing, `files()` will return `None`. The caller may wish to wrap calls to `files()` in always_iterable or otherwise guard against this condition if the target distribution is not known to have the metadata present.

### Distribution requirements

To get the full set of requirements for a distribution, use the `requires()` function:

    >>> requires('wheel')
    ["pytest (>=3.0.0) ; extra == 'test'", "pytest-cov ; extra == 'test'"]

## Distributions

While the above API is the most common and convenient usage, you can get all of that information from the `Distribution` class. A `Distribution` is an abstract object that represents the metadata for a Python package. You can get the `Distribution` instance:

    >>> from importlib.metadata import distribution
    >>> dist = distribution('wheel')

Thus, an alternative way to get the version number is through the `Distribution` instance:

    >>> dist.version
    '0.32.3'

There are all kinds of additional metadata available on the `Distribution` instance:

    >>> dist.metadata['Requires-Python']
    '>=2.7, !=3.0.*, !=3.1.*, !=3.2.*, !=3.3.*'
    >>> dist.metadata['License']
    'MIT'

The full set of available metadata is not described here. See PEP 566 for additional details.

## Extending the search algorithm

Because package metadata is not available through `sys.path` searches, or package loaders directly, the metadata for a package is found through import system finders. To find a distribution package’s metadata, `importlib.metadata` queries the list of meta path finders on `sys.meta_path`.

The default `PathFinder` for Python includes a hook that calls into `importlib.metadata.MetadataPathFinder` for finding distributions loaded from typical file-system-based paths.

The abstract class `importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder` defines the interface expected of finders by Python’s import system. `importlib.metadata` extends this protocol by looking for an optional `find_distributions` callable on the finders from `sys.meta_path` and presents this extended interface as the `DistributionFinder` abstract base class, which defines this abstract method:

    @abc.abstractmethod
    def find_distributions(context=DistributionFinder.Context()):
        """Return an iterable of all Distribution instances capable of
        loading the metadata for packages for the indicated ``context``.
        """

The `DistributionFinder.Context` object provides `.path` and `.name` properties indicating the path to search and name to match and may supply other relevant context.

What this means in practice is that to support finding distribution package metadata in locations other than the file system, subclass `Distribution` and implement the abstract methods. Then from a custom finder, return instances of this derived `Distribution` in the `find_distributions()` method.

Footnotes

1

  Technically, the returned distribution metadata object is an `email.message.EmailMessage` instance, but this is an implementation detail, and not part of the stable API. You should only use dictionary-like methods and syntax to access the metadata contents.