Important note: While knowing how to create packages from your Python code to disseminate it is an important skill for a Python programmer, the procedure described in this section and section 2.8.3.2 is a bit complex and error-prone due to system and installation differences. It is also not required to have performed these steps successfully yourself to finish the lesson and the rest of the course. Therefore, this section is provided for interest only. We recommend that you just read through it or skip over it completely and you can then loop back to it at the end of the lesson if you have free time or after the end of the class. If you decide to go through the steps yourself and find yourself stuck with some errors, please feel free to ask about them on the course forums but don't let such issues keep you from reading through the rest of the section and finishing the lesson. 

Before we can create a conda package of our own we do need to install the conda-build package. We will use conda to install the conda Build package, just as you did with the PyQT5 package.

Use the Python Command Prompt and type in:

conda install conda-build

What we are doing is running conda with the install option, and asking it to install the conda-build package. A search and analysis will be performed by conda to find the package, determine its dependencies and you will be informed of all the packages that will be installed. Type in y to allow the install to proceed, and you will get progress messages for the installation of conda-build and all packages it is dependent on.

     

Figure 2.36 Progress for Installation

You could install other packages as well in a similar fashion (just as with pip), by changing the name conda-build to the appropriate package name. In order to know if a package you are looking for is available to be installed from conda, you can run conda with a search option, for example:

conda search pandas 

The output will show if the package is available, and if so from which channels. Channels are different repositories that have been set up by users and organizations.

Important note: As the previous section, this section is provided for interest only. We recommend that you just read through it or skip over it completely and you can then loop back to it at the end of the lesson if you have free time or after the end of the class. If you decide to go through the steps yourself and find yourself stuck with some errors, please feel free to ask about them on the course forums but don't let such issues keep you from reading through the rest of the section and finishing the lesson. 

Now that we know conda is installed and working, we will proceed to building your first conda package. Before we begin create a copy of your pip folder and rename it to conda. Delete the "dist" and "locationsfromwebservices.egg-info" folders. Creating a conda package will involve the following steps:

1. Creating a meta.yaml file
2. Creating a LICENSE file
3. Creating a build.sh and bld.bat files
4. Creating a setup.py file (we already created it while building the pip package)
5. Building the project using conda-build
6. Creating an account on Anaconda Cloud
7. Uploading the project to Anaconda Cloud

We will walk through all these steps and create the necessary files and folders, just as we did for pip. For reference, as you are reading on, your final package folder and file structure should look like this for conda:

<yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices  
  ├── bld.bat 
  ├── build.sh 
  ├── LICENSE 
  ├── meta.yaml 
  ├── setup.py 
  └── <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices  
     ├── __init__.py 
     ├── core_function.py 
     ├── gui_main.py 
     ├── gui_main.ui 
     ├── gui_newshapefile.py 
     ├── gui_newshapefile.ui 
     └── main.py 

The next step is to create a file named meta.yaml in the original (outer) <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices folder. You can create the file in any text editor. Make sure the name and extension match exactly. Type in the following into the file. Some of the elements will be left empty, but it is a good idea to use this template, to make sure all the elements you need are there:

package: 
  name: <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservicescomplete 
  version: "1.0" 

source: 
  path: ./ 

requirements: 
  build: 
    - python 
    - setuptools 

  run: 
    - python 
    - pyqt 
    
about: 
  home: /geog489/node/1867/
  license: BSD 
  license_file: LICENSE

The package section of the file simply contains the package name and the version. The name can only contain lowercase letters and dashes.

The source sections point to the source of the data. In this case, we are pointing to the source on the local drive, but the source could be git or a compressed (.zip or .tar file), along with a few other options.

The requirements specify what tools are necessary to build the package, and the run section specifies what packages are necessary for running the package. Since we made the arcpy an optional part of the project we will not include it under the requirements. Setuptools is a package that helps with building Python projects. Please note that in conda the pyqt5 package is just called pyqt.

The about section provides more information about the package, such as the website it may be found on and license specification.

We set the license to BSD, which is a very permissive license type. Other licenses you may want to consider are GPL (General Public License) and LGPL (Lesser General Public License). A summary of these open source license types and a few others can be found at: choosealicense.com. It is a good idea to include a license with your package distribution. The name of the license file is specified in the about – license_file section, and it is typically named just license. You can download a sample license file here to be included with your distribution, or you can use the Binpress license generator and specify your own terms. Place the LICENSE file in the outer <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices folder where the meta.yaml file is located.

The version of the meta.yaml file we created is rather simple. There are other options you can set if necessary. Find the complete guide here. 

Now we also need to create two build script files – build.sh and bld.bat. The .bat file works in the Windows environment, but, if the project is built on a Linux or a macOS environment (unlikely for arcpy type projects), we need the build.sh file as well.

Type in the following content into the bld.bat file:

"%PYTHON%" setup.py install 
if errorlevel 1 exit 1 

Here is the content for the build.sh file:

$PYTHON setup.py install 

As you may have gathered from the batch files we created, the setup.py file is required by conda. Since we created it in setting up the pip package we do not need to recreate it here – just copy it from its location in your pip folder to the <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices folder within your conda folder.

Copy the LICENSE file into the <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices folder as well.

Now that we have the package set up, we will use the Python Command Prompt to build the package. Make sure you are in the folder that contains the outer <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices and run the following command:

conda-build <yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservices

After a long process and verbose output, towards the end you should see a line that gives you the command to upload your package to anaconda. More on this later. For now, just look at this output and note where the compressed tar.bz2 archive with your package has been created:

# If you want to upload package(s) to anaconda.org later, type: 

anaconda upload c:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\arcgispro-py3-clone\conda-bld\win-64\<yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservicescomplete-1.0-py35hc17e43c_0.tar.bz2 

     

Figure 2.39 Upload Command

If you were watching the conda-build output very closely you might have seen a couple of errors displaying "The system cannot find the path specified" for some Visual Studio tools – that is okay and you do not need to be concerned by those.

That brings us to the next section of the lesson where we discuss Anaconda. Leave the Python Command Prompt window open, as we will be using it shortly to upload the package to the Anaconda Cloud.

Anaconda is a Python distribution that includes popular data science packages and the familiar package manager conda in its distribution. Anaconda makes it easy to create a Python setup conducive to data analytics that also facilitates package management (updates, installs, removals), packaging projects, managing environments, and sharing packages. Anaconda provides a Graphical User Interface for managing Python environments, packages, and various data science software. Figure 2.40 below (obtained from the Anaconda website) shows the Anaconda components.

The conda portion of Anaconda contains a repository of packages maintained by Anaconda (Anaconda Repository), but also the Anaconda Cloud, which users and organizations can contribute to. If we were to upload the package created in the previous optional section with the command conda presented to us, it would be uploaded to the Anaconda Cloud.

We will use Anaconda in Lesson 3 to work in a fresh Python environment outside the ArcGIS Pro installation. You should therefore perform the steps in this section to install Anaconda on your computer. Setting up a user account for Anaconda Cloud will be described in the following optional section, but you won't need this unless you want try uploading the conda package from the previous optional section.

Figure 2.40 Anaconda Components

Anaconda.com

To download and install Anaconda you would normally go to anaconda.com, pick the Individual Edition option (or one of the other options if you prefer), and then click Download to get to the page where you can download the Anaconda installers (Figure 41; Anaconda frequently updates their website design, but you get the idea). However, we are here providing a direct link to download the Windows 64-bit installer to make sure we all are using the same version, one that we have tested the Lesson 3 content with: https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2024.06-1-Windows-x86_64.exe . Once downloaded, double-click on the .exe file to run the installer. Use all the default install options. If asked, you can choose to skip installing Microsoft Visual Studio Code.

Figure 2.41 Python 3.x Windows Installer

Anaconda.com

 

 

After the installation, Anaconda will be located in a folder called Anaconda3 of your user's home directory, so C:\Users\<user name>\Anaconda3. This is the root environment (also called base environment) installed by Anaconda. If you create further environments or clone existing environments, these will be located in the envs subfolder of the Anaconda3 directory.

The easiest way to interact with Anaconda is via the Anaconda Navigator program that provides a graphical user interface for managing the installation, starting programs, etc. Just type the first letters into the Windows search and you should be able to find the program and run it (if not, it is located in the Scripts subfolder of the Anaconda3 directory).

Here is a quick overview of the Navigator interface: As shown in the image below, the Navigator has a vertical main menu on the left side of the window. We are only interested in the Home and Environments entries at the moment. The Home screen simply shows you a number of applications that are either installed and can be launched in your currently active Python environment or that you may want to install. You can switch to a different environment using the dropdown menu box at the top. In the image below, the currently active environment is the root environment installed by Anaconda.

Figure 2.42 Anaconda Navigator Home Screen

If you now switch to the Environments screen, you will see that it has two main sections: the one on the left is for managing Python environments and the one on the right is for managing packages in the currently active environment. Anaconda will also see potential environments located under C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs, so, if that's the location where your ArcGIS Pro installation has stored its default Python environment, it should appear in the environments list as well.

Figure 2.43 Anaconda Navigator Environment and Package Management

Clicking on a environment in the list will activate that environment and update the package manager view on the right accordingly. The buttons below the environment list can be used to easily create, clone or delete environments. The graphical package manager on the right is also relatively intuitive to use. At the top, you can (among other options) select whether it should list the current, not installed, or all available packages. Selecting an uninstalled package by clicking the box on the very left of the entry will allow you to install that package. Packages for which newer versions are available are shown with a blue arrow next to the version number on the right. Clicking that arrow will allow you to update the package. Both the graphical environment manager and package manager are visual front-ends to conda. So whenever you perform some activity, like installing a package, the corresponding conda command will be executed in the background.

This was really just a very brief introduction to the main elements of the Anaconda Navigator and Anaconda in general. However, you will get the chance to use it further and learn more details in Lesson 3.

Important note: This section uses the conda package created in optional section 2.8.3.2. While knowing how to create packages from your Python code to disseminate it is an important skill for a Python programmer, it is not required to have performed the steps required in this section successfully yourself to finish the lesson and the rest of the course. Therefore, this section is provided for interest only. We recommend that you just read through it or skip over it completely and you can then loop back to it at the end of the lesson if you have free time or after the end of the class. If you decide to go through the steps yourself and find yourself stuck with some errors, please feel free to ask about them on the course forums but don't let such issues keep you from reading through the rest of the section and finishing the lesson. 

After the installation, the next step to publishing our conda package from Section 2.8.3.2 is creating a user account. In order to obtain one, you need to go to anaconda.org and use the dialog on the right side of the screen to create an account.

Figure 2.42 Anaconda User

Anaconda.com

Finally, we are ready to upload our package to Anaconda. In the Command Prompt window, run the following command to log into the Anaconda Cloud (note that the path might be one of the following two options depending on where Anaconda is installed):

c:\Users\YourUserName\Anaconda3\Scripts\anaconda login 

or 

c:\programdata\Anaconda3\Scripts\anaconda login 

You will be asked to provide your user credentials and will be greeted with a message that confirms that your login was successful.

The next step is to upload your package – run the following command (remembering to use the path to where Anaconda was installed), but replace the tar.bz2 file with the file name conda provided you at the completion of the package build. If you are using an older version of Pro, you will also have to replace the first part of the path to the .tar.bz2 file with "c:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Pro\bin\Python\envs\arcgispro-py3\conda-bld\win-64\".

c:\Users\YourUserName\Anaconda3\Scripts\anaconda upload "c:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\ESRI\conda\envs\arcgispro-py3-clone\conda-bld\win-64\<yourinitialsdate>locationsfromwebservicescomplete-1.0-py35hc17e43c_0.tar.bz2" 

You will receive messages that keep you updated on the upload status, and then you will be notified that the upload is complete. Log into the Anaconda Cloud and look at your Dashboard (Figure 43) – the package is now listed, and located in your own Anaconda Cloud Channel. If you click on the package name you will receive information on how it can be installed with conda.

Figure 2.43 Anaconda Landscape

Anaconda.com