distutils

Distutils is a legacy Python standard library module for distributing Python modules. It provides a framework and command-line utilities to build, package, and install modules and extensions.

Core API resides in distutils.core; the setup() function is used in a setup script (setup.py) to declare metadata and options. Distutils defines a Distribution object that stores metadata such as name, version, author, and the command suite comprised of classes derived from distutils.cmd.Command.

The typical workflow includes creating a setup.py, defining metadata and build options, and invoking commands such as sdist to create a source distribution, bdist to build a binary distribution, build to compile extensions, and install to install into the Python environment.

Distutils is the foundation for many packaging tools. setuptools extends distutils with additional commands and features, and the ecosystem has moved toward wrappers and build backends driven by PEP 517 and PEP 518, including the wheel package and packaging libraries.

In modern Python, distutils has been deprecated and was removed from the standard library; new projects are advised to use setuptools or other packaging tools, and to define build requirements via pyproject.toml.

In practice, distutils remains in historical code and is sometimes encountered in legacy projects, but it is no longer the recommended tool for new distributions.