meson-python (original) (raw)

View this page

Toggle table of contents sidebar

A Python package build backend leveraging the Meson build system.

meson-python implement the Python build system hooks, enabling Python build front-ends such as pip and build to build and install Python packages based on a Meson build definition.

Meson is characterized by build definitions written in a very readable domain-specific language and extremely fast builds. Meson support for Windows, macOS, Linux, and other UNIX-like operative systems, and for all the major compiler tool-chains. It allows to compile and link together code written in many programming languages, including C, C++, Cython, D, Fortran, Objective C, and Rust. It has built-in multi-platform dependency provider that works well with distribution packages, and the capability to build dependencies as sub-projects. If you are not familiar with Meson, we recommend checking theMeson tutorial.

meson-python inherits the strengths of Meson and is thus best suited for Python packages building extension modules in compiled languages.meson-python is suitable for small packages as well as very complex ones, see our Examples directory.

To enable pip or build to build a Python source distribution (sdist) or a binary Python package (wheel) for a Meson project, it is sufficient to add to the root of the source tree next to the top-level meson.build apyproject.toml file specifying meson-python as the Python build backend:

[build-system] build-backend = 'mesonpy' requires = ['meson-python']

The package name and version are extracted from the metadata provided to Meson via the project() function in the meson.build file. Package metadata can be overridden and extended using the standard package metadata format in theproject section of pyproject.toml:

[project] name = 'example' version = '1.0.0' description = 'Example package using the meson-python build backend' readme = 'README.rst' license = {file = 'LICENSE.txt'} authors = [ {name = 'Au Thor', email = 'author@example.com'}, ]

[project.scripts] example = 'example.cli:main'

Please refer to the PyPA documentation for detailed documentation about thepyproject.toml file. Please refer to our Tutorial for guidance about the use of meson-python and Meson for Python packaging.