Basket is a small command-line utility that downloads Python
packages from a (real) PyPI server and store them in a single
place so that they can be found by easy_install
or pip
when offline.
I often work offline (typically in the train). It is not unusal then to have to create a virtual environment and fill it with the Python packages I need. Without an Internet connection, I could copy Python packages from an environment to another, but this is a bit cumbersome. I need a local PyPI repository. Basket allows me to build and maintain such a repository.
Basket is not a PyPI mirror. It is not a server: you cannot register or upload packages. It does not install Python packages in a Python installation or a virtual environment.
You need Python 2.7 or Python 3.2 to run Basket. It may work with other versions but this has not been tested.
Install Basket:
$ easy_install Basket
or:
$ pip install Basket
Initialize your Basket repository:
$ basket init Repository has been created: ~/.basket
This will create a .basket/
directory in your
home folder. If this location is not appropriate, you may
configure it by setting a
BASKET_ROOT
environment variable. If the
directory already exists, an error message will be
printed.
Download one or more packages:
$ basket download unittest2 Added unittest2 0.5.1. $ basket download nose coverage Added coverage 3.5.2. Added nose 1.1.2.
Basket searches for the name of the package so the case does not matter:
$ basket download MySql-pYthon Added MySQL-python 1.2.3.
If you already have the latest version of the requested
package, Basket will not download it again. If there is a
more recent version, Basket will download it but will also
keep the old one. This is a feature: if you want to remove
old versions, use the prune
command (see
below).
Basket also downloads requirements:
$ basket download Jinja2 Added Jinja2 2.6. -> requires: Babel Added Babel 0.9.6.
See the Limitations and features section below for further details about which packages can be downloaded and how Basket handle requirements.
List all downloaded packages:
$ basket list Babel 0.9.6 coverage 3.5.2 Jinja2 2.6 MySQL-python 1.2.3 nose 1.1.2 unittest2 0.5.1
Or only one or more specific packages:
$ basket list nose nose 1.1.2 $ basket list nose coverage coverage 3.5.2 nose 1.1.2
You probably want to update packages regularly. The following will download the latest version of each existing package if you do not have it already:
$ basket update nose nose is already up to date (1.1.2).
Ok, we have the latest versions. Let's mess with the
repository to make it think that we actually have an old
version of nose
:
$ mv ~/.basket/nose-1.1.2.tar.gz ~/.basket/nose-1.1.1.tar.gz $ basket list nose nose 1.1.1
And ask again:
$ basket update nose Added nose 1.1.2.
As indicated above for the download
command,
old versions are kept alongside the latest one. This is a
feature.
$ basket list nose nose 1.1.1 nose 1.1.2
You may update only a particular package or a set of packages:
$ basket update Jinja2 Jinja2 is already up to date (2.6). $ basket update nose coverage coverage is already up to date (3.5.2). nose is already up to date (1.1.2).
Usually, though, you would ask for an update of all downloaded packages:
$ basket update Babel is already up to date (0.9.6). coverage is already up to date (3.5.2). Jinja2 is already up to date (2.6). MySQL-python is already up to date (1.2.3). nose is already up to date (1.1.2). unittest2 is already up to date (0.5.1).
If you wish to keep only the latest version of each package,
use the prune
command:
$ basket list nose nose 1.1.1 nose 1.1.2 $ basket prune nose Removed nose 1.1.1 (kept 1.1.2). $ basket list nose nose 1.1.2
You may do the same thing on all downloaded packages:
$ basket prune Babel has only one version. Nothing to prune. coverage has only one version. Nothing to prune. Jinja2 has only one version. Nothing to prune. MySQL-python has only one version. Nothing to prune. nose has only one version. Nothing to prune. unittest2 has only one version. Nothing to prune.
Of course, it would be wiser to update downloaded packages before pruning anything. Otherwise, you may end up keeping only your latest downloaded packages instead of the latest released packages.
Obviously, all commands above (except list
) require
an Internet connection. The point of Basket is that if you are
offline, you can still install your preferred packages from your
Basket repository:
$ easy_install -f ~/.basket -H None pyramid
Or if you prefer Pip:
$ pip install --no-index -f file:///path/to/.basket pyramid
Running Basket without any argument, with wrong arguments or with the
help
command will print an helpful message that
describes each command.
help
init
.basket
in your
home folder (unless a BASKET_ROOT
environment
variable is set, in which case its value is used as the path
to the repository).
download <package1> <package2> ...
list [<package1> <package2> ...]
prune [<package1> <package2> ...]
update [<package1> <package2> ...]
Basket downloads source distributions only. That may or may not cause issues for certain packages on certain platforms.
Basket cannot download packages that are not hosted on
PyPI. Note that a package may appear on PyPI while its files are
hosted somewhere else. In this case, easy_install
and pip
go a long way to find the files (by
following links and parsing HTML pages). Basket, on the other
hand, does not do that and act as if the package was not on
PyPI.
When looking at requirements, Basket only cares about the name of the package, ignoring any particular version requirements (e.g. "nose>=1.1.2") and thus always downloading the latest version. This may be a problem for packages that explictly require a version that is not the latest.
Also, Basket downloads optional requirements. This is a feature.
Basket is hosted on GitHub. Feel free to report bugs and contribute there.
Tests may be run with Tox,
which has to be installed first. Unit and integration tests may
be run with the tox
command. Functional tests are a
lot slower (more than 30 seconds for each Python version) and must
be run explicitly with tox -e py27-functional
and tox -e py32-functional
.
Basket is written by Damien Baty and is licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.
First public release.