Support requirements in pyproject.toml

[stefaneidelloth]

What's the problem this feature will solve?

I would prefer to put requirements in pyproject.toml instead of using an extra configuration file requirements.txt.
=> Central configuration file

Are there plans to support this in future versions of pip? If not, what speaks against it?

Describe the solution you'd like

Support a command
pip install (would parallel syntax of npm install)
that looks up requirements from pyproject.toml and installs them.

If possible. the syntax for dependencies inside pyproject.toml should be compatible to the one used by hatch (and or poetry):

https://hatch.pypa.io/latest/config/dependency/

https://peps.python.org/pep-0631/

https://python-poetry.org/docs/pyproject#dependencies-and-dependency-groups

Alternative Solutions

pip install -r pyproject.toml

pip install -e .[dev]

Additional context

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74508024/is-requirements-txt-still-needed-when-using-pyproject-toml

https://hatch.pypa.io/latest/config/dependency/

https://python-poetry.org/docs/pyproject#dependencies-and-dependency-groups

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.

[asears]

Duplicate of #8049 #11584 and others.

This seems to be a common long standing request. Originally I had this question too, following DRY it seemed like duplication to copy simple requirements to 2 places (pyproject build for other packages, install for my packages).

If not updating the pip project,, it would be good to update documentation/FAQ to identify some methods of using pyproject.toml as the base for compiling and installing requirements based on minimum requirements, and why you may not want to do that and handle them with other methods.

python -m pip install --build -r pyproject

could generate a transitory requirements.txt based on pyproject.toml?

pip-tools and poetry and other tools have this option, it's up to the developer to combine and implement them.
Is there a pip or packaging FAQ? Instead of directing these questions into deep GitHub issues they could be in a FAQ.

https://python-poetry.org/docs/1.4/faq/#why-are-unbound-version-constraints-a-bad-idea
https://chadsmith-software.medium.com/pep-517-and-518-in-plain-english-47208ca8b7a6

Does it make more sense to maintain a requirements.in rather than requirements.txt?
Then there is the question of pinned vs. unpinned requirements.
jazzband/pip-tools#1656

[stefaneidelloth]

Thank you for linking the related issues.

In my use case I do not want to install my project as a python package at all.
I just would prefer to have a central configuration file instead of individual files
for pytest, pylint, ...

a) Switching from pip to hatch, poetry etc. might be an option for me. However, those tools are not included by default and would need to be extra installed. See for example

winpython/winpython#1128

=> I would prefer to use the standard pip tool... supporting pyproject.toml as alternative to requirements.txt.

(Furthermore, poetry is not portable but stores an absolute path to python.exe. )

b) The referenced links seem to suggest special options, e. g. --only-deps: #11440

My suggestion here is to use pip install without any extra argument:

pip install

Currently that command gives the answer

ERROR: You must give at least one requirement to install (see "pip help install")

When using npm install for JavaScritpt projects, the requirements from package.json are installed.

Similarly, I would expect pip install to install the requirements from pyproject.toml to be installed.

[stefaneidelloth]

Just found out, that as a workaround I could use

pip install -e .[dev]

for what I want.

In addition to the dependencies, It requires a name and a version to be specified in pyproject.toml:

[project]
name = 'dummy_project_name'
version = '0.0.1'
dependencies = [
    'cryptography',
]

[project.optional-dependencies]
dev = [
    # linting
    'pylint',
    # formatting
    'black'
]

[sbidoul]

@stefaneidelloth if editables work for you, I think that is the best solution at this point in time.

I'm going to close this issue, as it is amply discussed in #11440.

[stefaneidelloth]

Is there a way to disable the creation of the egg file inside my src folder or automatically delete it when using

pip install -e .[dev]

?

[uranusjr]

The egg directory is created by the build backend you use (probably setuptools, most backends I know of don’t do that), and you’d want to talk to them about this instead.

[stefaneidelloth]

Thank you. The default build backend that is used if I don't specify one, seems to be setuptools. And setuptools creates the unwanted egg file. I would prefer if a "none" backend is used by default, only installing dependencies. I switched to hatchling as build backend, not creating the unwanted egg file any more:

[build-system]
requires = ["hatchling"]
build-backend = "hatchling.build"

[stefaneidelloth]

a) Switching from pip to hatch, poetry etc. might be an option for me. However, those tools are not included by default and would need to be extra installed.

The statement requires = ["hatchling"] seems to address this. Therefore, no need to manually install hatchling before applying it.