Building a conda package and uploading it to Anaconda Cloud

How to build a conda package from an existing PyPI package and upload it to Anaconda Cloud?

I have developed several Python packages (e.g., lidar, whitebox, pygis) and made them available on the Python Package Index (PyPI). Python packages available on PyPI can be easily installed using the following pip command:

pip install package-name

Conda is another open source package management system and environment management system. Python packages available on Anaconda Cloud or conda-forge can be easily installed using the conda command:

conda install -c channel-name package-name

I have been thinking about deploying my existing Python packages to Anaconda Cloud for some time. Today I followed the official conda tutorial to build the whitebox conda package and upload it the Anaconda cloud. The official conda tutorial is helpful, but it becomes very time-consuming when you are trying to build a package for multiple platforms (e.g., Linux, Windows, macOS) with different Python versions. Therefore, I created a bash script to automate the process. Here are the two steps:

Step 1: Install the prerequisites

Before you start the tutorials, you should already have installed Miniconda or Anaconda. You also need to install conda build and anaconda-client using the following commands:

sudo conda install conda-build
conda install anaconda-client
anaconda login

Step 2: Run the bash script

There are two parameters you need to change before running the bash script: pkg (i.e., PyPI package name) and array (i.e., Python versions). Note that all dependencies for your Python package must already exist on Anaconda Cloud or conda-forge. Otherwise, conda build will fail.

Download the following bash script from here.

#!/bin/bash
# change the package name to the existing PyPi package you would like to build
pkg='whitebox'
# adjust the Python versions you would like to build
array=( 3.5 3.6 3.7 )
echo "Building conda package ..."
cd ~
conda skeleton pypi $pkg
cd $pkg
wget https://conda.io/docs/_downloads/build1.sh
wget https://conda.io/docs/_downloads/bld.bat
cd ~
# building conda packages
for i in "${array[@]}"
do
	conda-build --python $i $pkg
done
# convert package to other platforms
cd ~
platforms=( osx-64 linux-32 linux-64 win-32 win-64 )
find $HOME/conda-bld/linux-64/ -name *.tar.bz2 | while read file
do
    echo $file
    #conda convert --platform all $file  -o $HOME/conda-bld/
    for platform in "${platforms[@]}"
    do
       conda convert --platform $platform $file  -o $HOME/conda-bld/
    done    
done
# upload packages to conda
find $HOME/conda-bld/ -name *.tar.bz2 | while read file
do
    echo $file
    anaconda upload $file
done
echo "Building conda package done!"

Step 3: Install the conda package

Once the conda package is successfully built and uploaded to Anaconda Cloud, you can then install the package using the conda install command, such as

conda install -c giswqs whitebox

Checkout the whitebox package on Anaconda Cloud.