PyInstaller Hooks Contrib

Warnings

• gotcha Many popular third-party libraries (e.g., PyQt, Kivy, matplotlib, scipy) will fail to build or run correctly when bundled with PyInstaller if `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` is not installed, as it provides essential community-maintained hooks for these packages.
  Fix: Always install `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` alongside `pyinstaller` to ensure broad compatibility: `pip install pyinstaller pyinstaller-hooks-contrib`.
• gotcha While not strictly tied, ensure that your `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` version is relatively up-to-date with your `PyInstaller` version. Newer PyInstaller versions might expect newer hook definitions, and older `contrib` versions could lead to build issues.
  Fix: Periodically update both packages: `pip install --upgrade pyinstaller pyinstaller-hooks-contrib`.
• gotcha Hooks for a specific library within `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` might occasionally lag behind very recent versions of that third-party library. This can lead to bundling issues even with the contrib package installed.
  Fix: If a build fails for a newly updated library, check the `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` GitHub issues for updates, or temporarily pin the problematic library to an older version known to work with the current hooks.

Install

• pip install pyinstaller pyinstaller-hooks-contrib Install PyInstaller with Hooks Contrib

Imports

• Not Applicable

  This library provides hooks that PyInstaller automatically discovers and uses during the build process. Direct imports of `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` in user application code are not performed.

  Users do not directly import symbols from `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib`. Its functionality is integrated into PyInstaller when present in the environment.

Quickstart

To demonstrate `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib`, create a simple application that uses a library known to require complex bundling (e.g., matplotlib). Install both `pyinstaller` and `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib`. When `pyinstaller` is run on the application, the `pyinstaller-hooks-contrib` library will be automatically detected and its hooks applied, ensuring the bundled application works correctly without manual intervention for common libraries.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

def create_plot():
    x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
    y = np.sin(x)
    plt.plot(x, y)
    plt.title("Simple Sine Wave")
    plt.xlabel("X-axis")
    plt.ylabel("Y-axis")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    create_plot()
    print("Matplotlib imported successfully (for PyInstaller testing).")

# To use:
# 1. Save the above code as app.py
# 2. Ensure pyinstaller and pyinstaller-hooks-contrib are installed:
#    pip install pyinstaller pyinstaller-hooks-contrib
# 3. Run PyInstaller:
#    pyinstaller app.py
# PyInstaller will automatically use the hooks from pyinstaller-hooks-contrib to correctly bundle matplotlib and numpy.