pyinstaller-versionfile

Create a windows version-file, known as VERSIONINFO resource, from metadata stored in a simple self-written YAML file or obtained from an installed distribution. This file can be used by PyInstaller to add the version resource in the bundled application.

Background

PyInstaller provides a way to capture Windows version data through a so called version-file. The process of crafting such a version file, and especially keeping the version number updated, is a bit cumbersome. This package aims to make the creation of such a version file easier.

The key/value pairs that be specified in the version file and their official meaning are shown the following table:

Parameter Name	Description
CompanyName	Name of the company that produced the file, for example, "My Imaginary Company, Inc.".
FileDescription	Description to be presented to users. It may be displayed when the user is choosing files to install. For example, "A simple app that does simple things.".
InternalName	Internal name of the file. If the file has no internal name, this string should be the original filename, without extension. For example, 'Simple App".
LegalCopyright	Copyright notices that apply to the file. This should include the full text of all notices, legal symbols, copyright dates, and so on. For example, "Copyright © 2000-2022, My Imaginary Company, Inc. All rights reserved.".
OriginalFilename	Original name of the file, not including a path. This information enables an application to determine whether a file has been renamed by a user. For example, "SimpleApp.exe".
ProductName	Name of the product with which the file is distributed, for example, "Simple App".
Translation	Combinations of language and character sets supported by the application. See the documentation for the codes to use. Multiple values can be specified.

Usage

pyinstaller-versionfile provides both a command line interface and a functional API.

Command line interface

pyinstaller-versionfile provides a command line interface that can be used to create a version file that can be passed to PyInstaller with the --version-file= option.

Run

pyivf-make_version --help

to see full interface description.

The CLI command create-version-file from pyinstaller-versionfile < V3 is currently still available for backwards compatibility, but it is no longer actively maintained

You can specify all parameters (except translations) via CLI options. If not specified, they will be left empty.
Static information like company name or file description can also be provided from other sources, which can be selected via --source-format:

• yaml: take the information from a YAML file
• dist or distribution: take the information from a installed Python package by reading its distribution metadata

If --source-format is specified, --metadata-source must be given in addition and specify either the path to the YAML file, or the name of the Python package. All options passed additionally can be used to overwrite the information extracted from --metadata-source.

A complete YAML configuration looks like this:

Version: 1.2.3.4
CompanyName: My Imaginary Company
FileDescription: Simple App
InternalName: Simple App
LegalCopyright: © My Imaginary Company. All rights reserved.
OriginalFilename: SimpleApp.exe
ProductName: Simple App
Translation:
  - langID: 0
    charsetID: 1200
  - langID: 1033
    charsetID: 1252

The encoding must be UTF-8. All fields are optional, you can choose to specify only those that are of interest to you.

To create version-file from this, simple run:

pyivf-make_version --source-format yaml --metadata-source metadata.yml --outfile file_version_info.txt

where metadata.yml is the YAML configuration file from above.

To run metadata extraction from distribution call:

pyivf-make_version --source-format dist --metadata-source PackageName --outfile file_version_info.txt

Extracting Version Information

In addition to otherwise constant project data, the version number is an exception that requires additional effort. As an alternative to specifying the version directly in the YAML file or the distribution metadata, there are two options which may be more suitable, depending on the use case.

Link to an External File

Instead of writing the version string directly into the YAML file, you can also specify the (relative) path to another file. Note that this file must only contain the version string and nothing else.

Version: VERSION.txt
CompanyName: My Imaginary Company
FileDescription: Simple App
InternalName: Simple App
LegalCopyright: © My Imaginary Company. All rights reserved.
OriginalFilename: SimpleApp.exe
ProductName: Simple App

Setting the Version from the Command Line

It is also possible to set the version directly over the command line using the --version option:

pyivf-make_version --source-format yaml --metadata-source metadata.yml --outfile file_version_info.txt --version 0.8.1.5

This can be useful if you want to use a CI build number as the version.

Extraction from distribution

Developers who has their distribution installed during development, as editable for example, may find it advantageous to realise automated versioning, e.g. with setuptools_scm. If then version is provided in the metadata of the distribution, this is where obtaining from distribution comes into play.

Functional API

You can also use pyinstaller-versionfile from your own python code by directly calling the functional API.

import pyinstaller_versionfile

pyinstaller_versionfile.create_versionfile_from_input_file(
    output_file="versionfile.txt",
    input_file="metadata.yml",
    version="1.2.3.4"  # optional, can be set to overwrite version information (equivalent to --version when using the CLI)
)

It is not necessary to use a file as input, you can also directly specify the desired values. All of them are optional and will be filled with placeholder values if not specified.

import pyinstaller_versionfile

pyinstaller_versionfile.create_versionfile(
    output_file="versionfile.txt",
    version="1.2.3.4",
    company_name="My Imaginary Company",
    file_description="Simple App",
    internal_name="Simple App",
    legal_copyright="© My Imaginary Company. All rights reserved.",
    original_filename="SimpleApp.exe",
    product_name="Simple App",
    translations=[0, 1200]
)

Use this to generate version-file from distribution:

import pyinstaller_versionfile

pyinstaller_versionfile.create_versionfile_from_distribution(
    output_file="versionfile.txt",
    distname="myPackage"
)

Contributing

If you think you found a bug, or have a proposal for an enhancement, do not hesitate to create a new issue or submit a pull request. I will look into it as soon as possible.