[Help] Using Pack on Package

[mightbecharles]

Hello-

I am having an issue with using the Pack command that I am not able to understand from the documentation. I hope that someone can please explain the limitations to me more clearly, since after reading the documentation I am still confused.

My environment

Python 3.13.2
Pyarmor 9.0.8 (trial), 000000, non-profits
Platform windows.x86_64

1. I am having no trouble using PyArmor on a package. This works fine

pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 app/

2. If I obfuscate the package, and then try to use PyInstaller to package it-- I have issue with PyInstaller not finding the imported modules as they are now obfuscated. This is expected behavior, per the docs.

4.3 Insight Into Pack Command
PyInstaller will analysis script to find imported modules and packages, once the script is obfuscated, nothing could be found, the final bundle complains of missing module.

3. So the solution is to use the --pack command to let PyArmor help me package this. I would try this code:

pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack app/

However, this leads to an error. As best as I can tell, PyInstaller does not allow you to pass in a package. It needs a script file as an entry point.

Question 1 Is this correct, that PyArmor can accept a package, but PyInstaller cannot, therefore in this case the user cannot autopack with PyArmor?

4. Assuming this is correct, I would either need to create a spec file, or find a way to pass in a script file instead of the package.

5. Making a manual spec file seems like a lot of extra work to manage, I would like to not have to chase down every hidden import.

6. I would like to rely on PyArmor for this. So I can try the following command:

pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack app/main.py

My Project structure looks like this:

project_root/
│
├── app/
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── helper.py
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── services.py
│   └── config/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── settings.py
│── other_dirs/

When I call:

pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack app/main.py

My obfuscated code lands here:

project_root/
│
└── .pyarmor/pack/
         ├──hook-pyarmor_runtime_000000.py
         └──dist/
              ├──main.py
              ├──other_code.py
              └──pyarmor_runtime_000000/

And the packaged file lands here:

project_root/
│
└──dist/
         └──main.exe

If I call python .pyarmor/pack/dist/main.py I will receive this error

File "<frozen __main__>", line 3, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'app'

I am guessing this is because my project uses absolute imports, so everything is imported as app.package.submodule. However, after obfuscation, all of the files land in a dist/ and they are no longer in app/. I have not changed everything to relative imports to check. I would prefer to keep the absolute imports.

Question 2 Is the fact that the obfuscated code is no longer in app/ and is now in dist/ what is causing these import errors?

7. I thought maybe PyArmor was doing something under the hood to make this work when it gets passed to pyinstaller for final packaging. So I tried this command .\dist\main.exe to run the final packaged file. However, I receive this error

File "dist\main.py", line 2, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pyarmor_runtime_000000'

I have read the 4.2. Understanding Obfuscated Script, but I do not see what is relevant. I also note that --prefix and -i conflict with --pack. So it seems like there should be no other options required.

Question 3 Am I correct that no other commands should be necessary for this application?

8. I made a small test project with an absolute import and ran it with the same commands pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack app/main.py. I noticed when running the obfuscated code directly from python .\.pyarmor\pack\dist\main.py I received the same error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'app'. However when running the EXE it was OK. Not being able to run the obfuscated code pre-packaging is OK.

Question 4 Given the import structure, is this the expected behavior that the obfuscated code cannot be run?

10. This leads me to believe that my core issue is that the 'pyarmor_runtime_000000' is not being packaged correctly. This seems similar to #issue-2409761446.

Question 5 Does this seem like the culprit for this issue? Is there any other steps I can try to narrow this down?

[jondy]

How about this command?

pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack onefile app/main.py app/

[mightbecharles]

Thank you for this prompt suggestion.

I have just tried this. I called pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack onefile app/main.py app/

Now, when I run the obfuscated files directly, via this command python .\.pyarmor\pack\dist\main.py it runs correctly. No more ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'app' error.

However, when I launch the EXE .\dist\main.exe I still have have this error:

File "dist\main.py", line 2, in <module>
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pyarmor_runtime_000000'

[mightbecharles]

One interesting thing about calling pyarmor gen --recursive --expired 7 --pack onefile app/main.py app/

My .\pyarmor\pack\dist directory now looks like this:

dist/
│
├── app/
│   ├── main.py
│   ├── utils/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── helper.py
│   ├── services/
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── services.py
│   └── config/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── settings.py
├── main.py
├── utils/
│    ├── __init__.py
│    └── helper.py
├── services/
│    ├── __init__.py
│    └── services.py
└── config/
     ├── __init__.py
     └── settings.py

So it seems like I now have two copies of everything in PyArmor's output.

[jondy]

Remove output first, also check this page
https://pyarmor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/topic/obfuscated-script.html

[mightbecharles]

OK! Which output should I be removing? My script already removes the previous .pyarmor/, dist/, and main.spec on every run. Are there any other outputs I should be removing?

Thank you! I have read through that topic, but I do not understand if there is an answer there for this issue. Can you please let me know if there is a specific section I should look at?

[mightbecharles]

@jondy I am still working on this. I am thinking it might be a PyInstaller issue. I can see from the terminal output that the non-working case misses processing hook-pyarmor_runtime_000000.py, while the small working case will catch this file and process it.

I believe this PyInstaller function is not getting called or is somehow not working for the test case.

[mightbecharles]

I suppose it is due to the number of imports, and therefore the size of the bytecode

from pyarmor_runtime_000000 import __pyarmor__
__pyarmor__(__name__, __file__, b'............