wheel

Installation and Setup

Install it from the Python Package Index into a virtual environment:

• Windows
• Linux + macOS

PS> py -m pip install wheel

$ python -m pip install wheel

Key Features

• Implements the binary distribution format specification used by installers like pip, originally approved as PEP 427.
• Unpacks wheels while verifying hashes and file sizes against the RECORD file with wheel unpack.
• Repacks modified wheels and regenerates RECORD with wheel pack.
• Rewrites a wheel’s Python, ABI, and platform tags without rebuilding the package using wheel tags.
• Converts legacy .egg archives and Windows bdist_wininst installers into wheels with wheel convert.
• Displays a wheel’s metadata, tags, dependencies, and file listing without unpacking the archive using wheel info.

Usage

Unpack a wheel into a directory and verify it against RECORD:

$ wheel unpack dist/pkg-1.2.3-py3-none-any.whl

Repack an unpacked wheel and set a new build number:

$ wheel pack --build-number 2 pkg-1.2.3

Convert a legacy .egg or Windows installer into a wheel:

$ wheel convert dist/pkg-1.2.3-py3.11.egg

Related Resources

Tutorial

What Are Python Wheels and Why Should You Care?

In this tutorial, you'll learn what Python wheels are and why you should care as both a developer and end user of Python packages. You'll see how the wheel format has gained momentum over the last decade and how it has made the package installation process faster and more stable.

intermediate devops

For additional information on related topics, take a look at the following resources:

• How to Publish an Open-Source Python Package to PyPI (Tutorial)
• Everyday Project Packaging With pyproject.toml (Course)
• How to Publish Your Own Python Package to PyPI (Course)
• Publishing Python Packages to PyPI (Course)
• How to Publish an Open-Source Python Package to PyPI (Quiz)