How To Copy A Python Module And It's Dependencies To A File

I want to use a Python module like urllib.request but have all the module's dependencies in a file where I can use them on a computer without having the entire Python installation.

Solution 1:

There's a variety of options available to do this sort of thing. The one that comes to mind first off the top of my head is python's built-in zip support; if you have a __main__.py in your zip, running python on the zip file will run it as a script. Simple (pure-python, non-OS-dependent) packages should be simply embeddable into such a zip file.

Alternatively, tools such as cx_Freeze can package a script with its dependencies including the interpreter in an OS-specific fashion. This will typically result in a larger footprint as the resulting bundle includes the interpreter as well, but allows including more complex dependencies with native components; I'm not sure this is possible with python's zip import functionality.

Solution 2:

Use a container tech. Docker, for example, gives you the ability to port your code with dependencies to any machine you want without you have to install anything new in the machine and it saves a lot of time too.