Install Guide

Installing pygrametl is fairly simple, mainly due to the package having no mandatory dependencies. This guide contains all the information needed to install and use the package with CPython. pygrametl also supports the JVM-based Python implementation Jython. For more information about using pygrametl with Jython see Jython.

Installing a Python Implementation

pygrametl requires an implementation of the Python programming language to run. Currently, pygrametl officially supports the following implementations (other implementations like PyPy and IronPython might also work):

Warning

As Python 2 is no longer being maintained support for it will slowly be reduced as we continue to develop pygrametl. Currently, dttr is the only pygrametl module that requires Python 3 (version 3.4 or above).

After a Python implementation has been installed and added to the system’s path, it can be run from either the command prompt in Windows or the shell in Unix-like systems. This should launch the Python interpreter in interactive mode, allowing commands to be executed directly on the command line.

Python 3.9.2 (default, Feb 20 2021, 18:40:11)
[GCC 10.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

Installing pygrametl

pygrametl can either be installed from PyPI using a package manager, such as pip or conda, or by manually checking out the latest development version from the official GitHub repository. Installing pygrametl from PyPI is currently the simplest way to install pygrametl as the process is automated by the package manager. Bug fixes and new experimental features are, however, of course, available first in the GitHub repository.

Install from PyPI with pip

pip can install pygrametl to the Python implementation’s global package directory, or to the user’s local package directory which is usually located in the user’s home directory. Installing pygrametl globally will often require root or administrator privileges with the advantage that the package will be available to all users of that system. Installing it locally will only make it available to the current user, but the installation can be performed without additional privileges. The two types of installation can be performed using one of the following commands:

# Install pygrametl to the global package directory
$ pip install pygrametl

# Install pygrametl to the user's local package directory
$ pip install pygrametl --user

Install from PyPI with conda

conda is an alternative package manager for Python. It is bundled with the Anaconda CPython distribution from Anaconda, Inc. There is no official pygrametl conda package as it uses a different package format than pip. It is however trivial to download, convert, and install the PyPI package using conda with only a few commands.

# Create a template for the conda package using the PyPI package
$ conda skeleton pypi pygrametl

# Build the conda package
$ conda build pygrametl/meta.yaml

# Install the conda package
$ conda install --use-local pygrametl

Afterward, the folder containing the package template can be deleted as it is only used for building the package.

Install from GitHub

The latest development version of pygrametl can be downloaded from the official GitHub repository. The project currently uses Git for version control, so the repository can be cloned using the following command.

# Clone the pygrametl repository from GitHub
$ git clone https://github.com/chrthomsen/pygrametl.git

Before Python can import the modules, the pygrametl package must be added to sys.path. This can be done manually in your Python programs, by setting PYTHONPATH if CPython is used, or by setting JYTHONPATH if Jython is used. More information about how CPython and Jython locate modules can be found in the two links provided.

Verifying Installation

A simple way to verify that pygrametl has been installed correctly and is accessible to the Python interpreter is to start the interpreter in interactive mode from the command line and run the command import pygrametl.

Python 3.9.2 (default, Feb 20 2021, 18:40:11)
[GCC 10.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import pygrametl
>>>

If this fails with the message ImportError: No module named pygrametl then verify that the install location of the package is included in either the environment variable, PYTHONPATH if CPython is used, or the environment variable JYTHONPATH if Jython is used. By including the location of pygrametl in these variables, it is available to all instances of that Python implementation just like any built-in Python package. As an alternative, the path to pygrametl can be set on a program to program basis, by adding the path of pygrametl to sys.path, before importing the package in your code.

# The path to the pygrametl package is added to the path used by the Python
# interpreter when modules are being imported, this must be done in all
# program using a module not included in the default Python path
import sys
sys.path.append('/path/to/pygrametl')

# After the folder is added to Python's path can pygrametl be imported
import pygrametl