I have a

pex_binary

target in a BUILD file (a utility script used to maintain an in-repo file). I want a

@rule

to run that target. What's the best way to get that pex? Surely there's a way to request a pex from a given target, right? The only slightly related thing I found in the docs was https://www.pantsbuild.org/docs/rules-api-installing-tools#pex-install-binaries-through-pip But this is not an external / installed tool. It's entirely in-repo.

Just

await

the

BuiltPackage

to get the built thing. Or if you just wanna run it you could request a

RunRequest

and run it yourself (similar to how the

run

goal works

ugh. Declaring a

pex_binary

target will make

./pants package ::

build it?

As of today, yes

I haven't done anything with packaging yet, so that's a blind spot I have.

Which isn't great. Prior to my google doc, a

pex_binary

was the only way to run "scripts". But once thats in that will change (after a deprecation cycle)

I have a python script, it imports various other python sources from the project to extract info from them (thus it requires venv-ish something). I just want my rules to run the file in a virtualenv and give me the stdout. 😕 I feel like I'm building a lot of boilerplate to "just" run a script.

Well there's two parts here: • If you want to "just run a script" and it to work, then you can

./pants run path/to/file.py

and if there's a

pex_binary

with the

entry_point

set to the file, you're golden • If you want to run this in a plugin, then the world is your oyster, but you have to do the groundwork

I don't want to run it, I want a rule to run it, so the

run

goal doesn't help me here.

Then you technically don't need a

pex_binary

target

Great. Got any examples of Pex-ifying a script (in a plugin)? I feel it should be obvious but my brain is a bit mushy today. 😕

Yeah the rule-based PEX support is a bit... tangled. So mushy brain is to be expected

cool. I will grep the pants code for

PexFromTargetsRequest

which I haven't seen before. Thank you for the tip!

From that, you can (probably) make a

VenvPex

->

VenvPexProcess

->

Process

->

ProcessResult

Will do. Thanks!