Advanced dependencies

Requesting USE flags on the Python interpreter

While the majority of Python standard library modules are available unconditionally, a few are controlled by USE flags. For example, the sqlite3 module requires sqlite flag to be enabled on the interpreter. If a package requires this module, it needs to enforce the matching flag via a USE dependency.

In order to create a USE dependency on the Python interpreter, set PYTHON_REQ_USE before inheriting the eclass. This will cause the eclass to generate appropriate dependency string in PYTHON_DEPS.

 # Copyright 1999-2020 Gentoo Authors
 # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

 EAPI=7

 PYTHON_COMPAT=( python3_6 )
 PYTHON_REQ_USE="sqlite"
 inherit python-r1 gnome2-utils meson xdg-utils

 DESCRIPTION="Modern music player for GNOME"
 HOMEPAGE="https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Lollypop"
 SRC_URI="https://adishatz.org/${PN}/${P}.tar.xz"
 KEYWORDS="~amd64"

 LICENSE="GPL-3"
 SLOT="0"
 REQUIRED_USE=${PYTHON_REQUIRED_USE}

 DEPEND="${PYTHON_DEPS}
     ..."

Full USE dependency syntax is permitted. For example, you can make the dependency conditional to a flag on the package:

 # Copyright 1999-2020 Gentoo Authors
 # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

 EAPI=6

 PYTHON_COMPAT=( python3_6 )
 PYTHON_REQ_USE="sqlite?"
 inherit distutils-r1

 DESCRIPTION="A lightweight password-manager with multiple database backends"
 HOMEPAGE="https://pwman3.github.io/pwman3/"
 SRC_URI="https://github.com/pwman3/pwman3/archive/v${PV}.tar.gz -> ${P}.tar.gz"

 LICENSE="GPL-3"
 SLOT="0"
 KEYWORDS="~amd64"
 IUSE="mongodb mysql postgres +sqlite"

Finally, there are cases when the problem cannot be fully solved using a single USE dependency. Additional Python interpreter dependencies with specific USE flags can be constructed using python_gen_impl_dep helper then. For example, the following ebuild requires Python with SQLite support when running tests:

 # Copyright 1999-2020 Gentoo Authors
 # Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

 EAPI=7
 PYTHON_COMPAT=( python{2_7,3_{6,7,8}} pypy3 )

 inherit distutils-r1

 DESCRIPTION="Let your Python tests travel through time"
 HOMEPAGE="https://github.com/spulec/freezegun"
 SRC_URI="mirror://pypi/${PN:0:1}/${PN}/${P}.tar.gz"

 LICENSE="Apache-2.0"
 SLOT="0"
 KEYWORDS="~alpha ~amd64 ~arm ~arm64 ~hppa ~ia64 ~m68k ~mips ~ppc ~ppc64 ~s390 ~sh ~sparc ~x86 ~amd64-linux ~x86-linux ~ppc-macos ~x64-macos ~x86-macos"

 RDEPEND="
     >dev-python/python-dateutil-2.0[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
     dev-python/six[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
 "
 DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
     dev-python/setuptools[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
     test? (
         $(python_gen_impl_dep sqlite)
         dev-python/mock[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
         dev-python/nose[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
     )
 "

 distutils_enable_tests pytest

Dependencies conditional to Python version

When packaging software for multiple Python versions, it is quite likely that you’ll find yourself needing some packages only with some of the versions, and not with others. This is the case with backports and other compatibility packages. It also happens if some of the optional dependencies do not support the full set of implementations your package supports.

A dependency that applies only to a subset of PYTHON_COMPAT can be created using python_gen_cond_dep function (the same as used in python-single-r1). In addition to the dependency template, it accepts an optional list of applicable implementations as arguments.

For example, dev-python/importlib_metadata package is a backport from Python 3.8. Therefore, the majority of its consumers require it only with older versions of Python:

RDEPEND="
    $(python_gen_cond_dep '
        dev-python/importlib_metadata[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
    ' pypy3 python3_{6,7})
"

Please note that the first argument is a template containing literal (escaped through use of single quotes) ${PYTHON_USEDEP} that will be substituted with partial USE dependency by the eclass function (${PYTHON_SINGLE_USEDEP} is also permitted when using python-single-r1). It is followed by a list of implementations that are not quoted. The example is using bash brace expansion to express python3_6 python3_7 shorter.

Since pypy3 can refer to any version of PyPy3, the dependency will eventually become outdated as PyPy3 upgrades to Python 3.8 compatibility. This is a known limitation of the eclasses and currently no solution is provided for it, besides updating dependencies once old version of PyPy3 is removed.

An important feature of python_gen_cond_dep is that it handles removal of old implementations gracefully. When one of the listed implementations is no longer supported, it silently ignores it. This makes it possible to remove old implementations without having to update all dependency strings immediately.

For example, in the example below the dependency became empty when Python 3.7 was removed.

RDEPEND="
    $(python_gen_cond_dep '
        dev-python/importlib_metadata[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
    ' python3_7)"

Dependencies on CFFI and greenlet

The PyPy distribution includes special versions of the cffi and greenlet packages. For this reason, packages using CFFI and/or greenlet and supporting PyPy3 need to make the explicit dependencies conditional to CPython:

RDEPEND="
    $(python_gen_cond_dep '
        >=dev-python/cffi-1.1.0:=[${PYTHON_USEDEP}]
    ' 'python*')
"