Friday, April 1, 2022

[SOLVED] Package my python project into exe file that requires nothing to be installed on customer side

Issue

I have developed a python application that records the users' actions on the web using the following packages

python==3.7.9
selenium==4.0.0
seleniumbase==2.1.9
Tinkerer==1.7.2
tqdm==4.62.3
validators==0.18.2

I have tried to use a lot of different approaches to convert into an exe file that will require nothing to be installed on the client's side I have tried using the following

  1. pyvan and it did not work and I opened an issue to the pkg's author
  2. pyinstaller and when I run my code, it always tells me that the library SeleniumBase is unknown and the solution is to install it on the customer side WHICH IS NOT AN OPTION
  3. pipenv and did not work as well
  4. PyOxidizer & py2exe did not work with me as well

I would like to convert that python application into an exe (I don't care if it is a single file or folder) as long as it requires no installation on the user's side

Repo Structure

├── requirements.txt
├── main.py
├── logo.ico
├── web_actions_recorder
|   ├── main.py
|   ├── __init__.py
└── README.md

Solution

I have found a solution/workaround

My application has this line where I am trying to invoke SeleniumBase on the customer side by the following python snippet import os; os.system("sbase mkrec recording.py") which is not possible as the customer does not have seleniumbase on his/her PC

The solution is as follows:

  1. Copy from your env Python Folder C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38 and paste it inside your project files.

    • The folder is called Python38 as I am working with multiple python versions on my PC, this one is named Python38 as it is python version 3.8.10

  2. Edit the code to be as following

import os


# the script was in a folder so I had to do `os.path.dirname(".") first
python_dir_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname("."), "Python38", "python.exe")
# in that way we will use the python folder with everything installed in
# to help us run the `sbase` command without having to install 
# anything on the user's side 
os.system(f"{python_path} -m sbase mkrec recording.py")
  1. Finally use PyInstaller v4.7 to package the application, in my case pyinstaller --clean --onedir --name <your_app_name> --windowed --hidden-import seleniumbase --icon <path_to_icon> main.py


Answered By - ElSheikh
Answer Checked By - Mary Flores (WPSolving Volunteer)
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