Pyinstaller: generate -exe file + folder (in --onefile mode)

You have to solve many issues to get this working. For example:

• Getting the right resource path
• Adding data

The first issue is (as mentionned) solved by adjusting paths depending on execution mode.

def app_path(path):
    frozen = 'not'
    if getattr(sys, 'frozen', False):
            # we are running in executable mode
            frozen = 'ever so'
            app_dir = sys._MEIPASS
    else:
            # we are running in a normal Python environment
            app_dir = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
    return os.path.join(app_dir, path)

For the second issue instead of tree i use the wildcard operator (*) to add what i need.

added_files = [
         ( './pics/*', 'pics' ),
         ( './db/*', 'db' ),
         ]

then in Analysis,

datas = added_files

A thorough answer is quite long. I've written this article to show in some minute details what i went through to solve the issue.

You can also run pyinstaller within another python script then use shutil.copytree() to move the folders over after. Or use shutil.copyfile() for individual files.

import PyInstaller.__main__
import shutil

PyInstaller.__main__.run([
    'YourProgram.py',
    '--icon=UI/Your_Icon.ico',
    '--onefile',
    '--noconsole',
], )

shutil.copytree('path/', 'dist/path')

Update 12/19/2013

Finally, we got it!

0. I'm working with current version of PYInstaller + Python 2.67 with Sublime Text as Editor.

1. In case your Py script requires some files, icons, images, you must include a function which retrieves these files from the project folder (in development) or form the temporary data folder (in case of deployment). This script MUST be in your code exactly in the part which you put the relatives paths in order to get the resources. Please follow exactly this guideline: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13790741

2. After the previous code, you must execute for the first time the pyinstaller command -as I post in my question post-.

3. Now, open your .spec file generated after execution of the PYInstaller (located in PYinstaller/) command and add, after "a.binaries" line, the next line into the EXE() function:

exe = EXE(pyz,
          a.scripts,
          a.binaries,
          Tree('..\\python\\images', prefix='images\\'),
....

Keep in mind that in Tree(...) function the first argument is the folder to put outside: which means that I want to include all the content of this folder (notice that I'm putting a relative path respect to the AppStart.py file) into the file's container of my .EXE file.

4. After that modification re-execute the pyinstaller command, but in this case pointing to my .SPEC file:

pyinstaller.py --windowed --noconsole --clean --onefile AppStart\AppStart.spec

And finally my App can be executed as executable without need to copy and paste all external folders as someone mentioned. But as always I consider the good-practical way.

Thanks for your support.