How Can I Successfully Bundle Data Files with PyInstaller's --onefile Option?

Bundling Data Files with PyInstaller: Resolving --onefile Issues

PyInstaller is a powerful tool for creating standalone executables from Python scripts. When bundling data files, such as images or icons, with PyInstaller's --onefile option, users may encounter challenges if the referenced files are not located.

Understanding the --onefile Feature

The --onefile option combines all program files, libraries, and data into a single executable file. This can be beneficial for distribution and security purposes but requires modifications to the way data files are accessed.

Handling Data Files

Initially, the spec file contains the following code to specify the data files:

a.datas += [('images/icon.ico', 'D:\[workspace]\App\src\images\icon.ico', 'DATA'),
('images/loaderani.gif','D:\[workspace]\App\src\images\loaderani.gif','DATA')]

However, with --onefile, PyInstaller no longer stores data files in specific directories. Instead, it embeds them within the executable itself.

Resolving File Lookup Issues

To resolve the issue where data files cannot be located by the compiled EXE, a known workaround involved setting an environment variable using the atexit module, as suggested by Shish. However, newer versions of PyInstaller have removed this functionality.

Updated Solution

For current versions of PyInstaller, the solution lies in accessing data files through sys._MEIPASS. The following code snippet demonstrates this approach:

def resource_path(relative_path):
    """ Get absolute path to resource, works for dev and for PyInstaller """
    try:
        # PyInstaller creates a temp folder and stores path in _MEIPASS
        base_path = sys._MEIPASS
    except Exception:
        base_path = os.path.abspath(".")

    return os.path.join(base_path, relative_path)

By substituting the file paths in the spec file with calls to resource_path(), the data files can be located and used correctly within the --onefile executable.

The above is the detailed content of How Can I Successfully Bundle Data Files with PyInstaller's --onefile Option?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!