pyrootutils alternative?

[cpoptic]

What is the purpose of the pyrootutils package in the context of lightning-hydra-template? There are other projects that do not have to use such a 3rd party library.
For example, https://github.com/Erlemar/pytorch_tempest does not make use of pyrootutils, and it works fine.
Nor does https://github.com/Erlemar/wheat make use of pyrootutils.

Is there another way to get the project root without having to introduce a 3rd party package?

[ashleve]

Hi @cpoptic, this has been recently explained here with a comment:

lightning-hydra-template/src/train.py

Lines 25 to 28 in 2f3fe86

	# you can get away without using `pyrootutils.setup_root(...)` if you:
	# 1. move this file to the project root dir or install project as a package
	# 2. modify paths in "configs/paths/default.yaml" to not use PROJECT_ROOT
	# 3. always run this file from the project root dir

lightning-hydra-template/src/train.py

Lines 10 to 31 in 2f3fe86

	# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #
	# `pyrootutils.setup_root(...)` is recommended at the top of each start file
	# to make the environment more robust and consistent
	#
	# the line above searches for ".git" or "pyproject.toml" in present and parent dirs
	# to determine the project root dir
	#
	# adds root dir to the PYTHONPATH (if `pythonpath=True`)
	# so this file can be run from any place without installing project as a package
	#
	# sets PROJECT_ROOT environment variable which is used in "configs/paths/default.yaml"
	# this makes all paths relative to the project root
	#
	# additionally loads environment variables from ".env" file (if `dotenv=True`)
	#
	# you can get away without using `pyrootutils.setup_root(...)` if you:
	# 1. move this file to the project root dir or install project as a package
	# 2. modify paths in "configs/paths/default.yaml" to not use PROJECT_ROOT
	# 3. always run this file from the project root dir
	#
	# https://github.com/ashleve/pyrootutils
	# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ #

To sum up, the purpose is to make the environment more robust and convenient.

You should be able to easily get rid of it as described above.

In the project you mentioned, nothing like that is used since the author stores all entry scripts in top-level directory. The problems are:

• in my opinion, it's not very clean to have entry files among other files like linter configs
• you can't nest your entry scripts in src/ unless you install project as a package (forcing the user to install project is bothersome so we try to avoid that)
• If you try to run the script from any other place than project root, the logging and data paths will be different due to different working directory

You are of course free to get rid of it if you find it too risky to have such dependency in your codebase.