Packaging packages?

[Michael P. Reilly]

Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
: Jeffrey Kunce <kuncej at mail.conservation.state.mo.us> wrote:
:> Is there a way to collect all the python modules in a package into one file?
:> I'm thinking of something like a "DLL for python code". It would be
:> nice if the normal import syntax would work transparantly on such files, 
:> as well as with the standard directory-based packages.

: you can use Greg Stein's imputil.py [1] for this.  see
: my reply in the recent "Embedding questions" for a
: code sample.

:> I've been a big fan of Fredrik's "Squeeze" and Gordon's "Win32 Installer",
:> but as far as I know, they pakage an entire application into one file.
:> I'm looking for a little more modularity than that, and something that
:> can be imported from native python.

: iirc, Gordon's stuff is about as modular as it can be.
: using it to create library packages shouldn't be much
: of a problem.

:> Is this already available? If not, has anyone worked on this? 
:> Does anyone else see the need?

Last summer I also created a native (or C) implimentation of something
similar to what was describe in the distutils SIG, something I called
Spamcan.  It's not as extensive as Gordon's Installer but is a little
more portable (works on just about any platform).  The purpose of this
module was to have something similar to JAR files, so the can file only
stores PYC files.  The general consensus on the distutils list was that
something more generic was needed (pyz) so I didn't really spend more
time or even announce it (Gordon's technical implimentation was more
versatile than mine).

Contact me if you're interested.

  -Arcege