py2exe - generate single executable file

The way to do this using py2exe is to use the bundle_files option in your setup.py file. For a single file you will want to set bundle_files to 1, compressed to True, and set the zipfile option to None. That way it creates one compressed file for easy distribution.

Here is a more complete description of the bundle_file option quoted directly from the py2exe site*

Using "bundle_files" and "zipfile"

An easier (and better) way to create single-file executables is to set bundle_files to 1 or 2, and to set zipfile to None. This approach does not require extracting files to a temporary location, which provides much faster program startup.

Valid values for bundle_files are:

• 3 (default) don't bundle
• 2 bundle everything but the Python interpreter
• 1 bundle everything, including the Python interpreter

If zipfile is set to None, the files will be bundle within the executable instead of library.zip.

Here is a sample setup.py:

from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe, sys, os

sys.argv.append('py2exe')

setup(
    options = {'py2exe': {'bundle_files': 1, 'compressed': True}},
    windows = [{'script': "single.py"}],
    zipfile = None,
)

PyInstaller will create a single .exe file with no dependencies; use the --onefile option. It does this by packing all the needed shared libs into the executable, and unpacking them before it runs, just as you describe (EDIT: py2exe also has this feature, see minty's answer)

I use the version of PyInstaller from svn, since the latest release (1.3) is somewhat outdated. It's been working really well for an app which depends on PyQt, PyQwt, numpy, scipy and a few more.

As the other poster mention, py2exe, will generate an executable + some libraries to load. You can also have some data to add to your program.

Next step is to use an installer, to package all this into one easy-to-use installable/unistallable program.

I have used InnoSetup with delight for several years and for commercial programs, so I heartily recommend it.

I'm told bbfreeze will create a single file .EXE, and is newer than py2exe.

I recently used py2exe to create an executable for post-review for sending reviews to ReviewBoard.

This was the setup.py I used

from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe

setup(console=['post-review'])

It created a directory containing the exe file and the libraries needed. I don't think it is possible to use py2exe to get just a single .exe file. If you need that you will need to first use py2exe and then use some form of installer to make the final executable.

One thing to take care of is that any egg files you use in your application need to be unzipped, otherwise py2exe can't include them. This is covered in the py2exe docs.

No, it's doesn't give you a single executable in the sense that you only have one file afterwards - but you have a directory which contains everything you need for running your program, including an exe file.

I just wrote this setup.py today. You only need to invoke python setup.py py2exe.