28.1. distutils — Building and installing Python modules

The distutils package provides support for building and installing additional modules into a Python installation. The new modules may be either 100%-pure Python, or may be extension modules written in C, or may be collections of Python packages which include modules coded in both Python and C.

Most Python users will not want to use this module directly, but instead use the cross-version tools maintained by the Python Packaging Authority. Refer to the Python Packaging User Guide for more information.

For the benefits of packaging tool authors and users seeking a deeper understanding of the details of the current packaging and distribution system, the legacy distutils based user documentation and API reference remain available:

• Installing Python Modules (Legacy version)
• Distributing Python Modules (Legacy version)