Overview

bbfreeze creates standalone executables from python scripts. It's similar in purpose to the well known py2exe for windows, py2app for OS X, PyInstaller and cx_Freeze (in fact ancient versions were based on cx_Freeze. And it uses the modulegraph package, which is also used by py2app).

It has the following features:

easy installation

bbfreeze can be installed with setuptools' easy_install command.

zip/egg file import tracking

bbfreeze tracks imports from zip files and includes whole egg files if some module is used from an eggfile. Packages using setuputils' pkg_resources module will now work (new in 0.95.0)

binary dependency tracking

bbfreeze will track binary dependencies and will include DLLs and shared libraries needed by a frozen program.

multiple script freezing

bbfreeze can freeze multiple scripts at once.

python interpreter included

bbfreeze will create an extra executable named 'py', which might be used like the python executable itself.

NEW automatic pathname rewriting

pathnames in tracebacks are replaced with relative pathnames (i.e. if you import package foo.bar from /home/jdoe/pylib/ tracebacks generated from functions in foo.bar will not show your local path /home/jdoe/pylib/foo/bar.py. They will instead show foo/bar.py)

bbfreeze works on windows and UNIX-like operating systems. It currently does not work on OS X. bbfreeze has been tested with python 2.4 and 2.5. bbfreeze will not work with python versions prior to 2.3 as it uses the zipimport feature introduced with python 2.3.

bb-freeze - command line tool

bbfreeze provides a command line utility called bb-freeze, which freezes all python scripts given on the command line into the directory dist, which then contains for each script an executable and all dependencies needed by those executables.

Example Usage:

$ cat hello-world.py
#! /usr/bin/env python

import sys
import email

print unicode("hello", "utf8"), unicode("world!", "ascii")

print "sys.path:", sys.path
print "__file__:", __file__
print "__name__:", __name__

print "locals():", locals()

print "sys.argv", sys.argv
print "sys.executable:", sys.executable
$ bb-freeze hello-world.py
*** applied <function recipe_email at 0xb7ba702c>
$ dist/hello-world
hello world!
...
$ dist/py
Python 2.5.1c1 (r251c1:54692, Apr 11 2007, 01:40:50)
[GCC 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(MyConsole)
>>> import email
$

bbfreeze - API

The preferred way to use bbfreeze is by writing short python scripts, which use bbfreeze's API. Let's start with a short example:

from bbfreeze import Freezer
f = Freezer("hello-world-1.0", includes=("_strptime",))
f.addScript("hello-world.py")
f.addScript("hello-version.py")
f()    # starts the freezing process

bbfreeze.Freezer(distdir="dist", includes=(), excludes=()) instantiates a Freezer object. It will create the frozen executables and dependencies inside the distdir directory. includes is a list or tuple of modules to include, excludes is a list or tuple of modules to exclude. Note that the freezer will delete the directory distdir before freezing!

bbfreeze.Freezer objects have the following members:

• use_compression: flag whether to use compression inside the created zipfile (default True).
• include_py: flag whether to create the included python interpreter py (default True)
• addScript(path, gui_only=False): register a python script for freezing. path must be the path to a python script. The freezer will scan the file for dependencies and will create an executable with the same name in distdir. The gui_only flag only has a meaning on windows: If set, the executable created for this script will not open a console window.

ChangeLog

LICENSE

bbfreeze contains a modified copy of modulegraph, which is distributed under the MIT license and is copyrighted by Bop Ippolito.

The remaining part is distributed under the zlib/libpng license:

Copyright (c) 2007 brainbot technologies AG

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.