How to Create a Package of Custom Python Functions and Use It With Databricks

(or "Just Enough Python to Be Dangerous")

As data science teams tackle more and more complex problems with Databricks, they often discover the need to share custom Python functions across multiple notebooks (or even across multiple Databricks workspaces). An excellent option for managing these Python functions is to create a custom Python library and upload that library to Databricks.

While many data scientists use Python to write analytics code, some of them may not be familiar with the Python packaging tools. This guide demonstrates the very basics of creating your first, ultra-simple Python package. We'll also show you how to upload that package to Databricks. This should help you and your team get started with a custom library of Python functions.

Example Scenario

Suppose you are a data scientist at Contoso Ltd. Your team is using Python in Databricks to analyze large volumes of data. One of your notebooks contains some very useful Python functions. You would like to use these functions in other notebooks, but you do not want to copy-and-paste the code to other notebooks because this would create redundant copies of the functions that would need to be maintained.

For this example scenario, let's suppose your Python functions are doing some very complex analysis, like adding two numbers together or subtracting one number from another number. These highly advanced Python functions in your notebook might look like this:

def AddNumbers(i, j):
    return i + j

def SubtractNumbers(i, j):
    return i - j

def MultiplyNumbers(i, j):
    return i * j

We want to put these functions into a Python package so that we can have one copy of the code that is shared across multiple notebooks on multiple clusters in multiple workspaces.

Since these are custom Python functions for our company, Contoso Ltd., we want to name our library contoso_functions.

Step 1: Install Python

To create a Python package, you will need a Python development environment. Unfortunately, you cannot use Databricks to build your package. You will need to install Python on your local machine or on a virtual machine. (The Azure Data Science Virtual Machine is an excellent option if you want a pre-made, cloud-based Python dev environment.)

Step 2: Create the Proper Directory Structure

When creating a Python package, the tools expect our files to be structured into directories. This structure affects what modules are in your library.

Here is how our files should be structured:

    contoso_functions
      |
      |-- contoso_functions
      |   |
      |   |-- __init__.py
      |   |-- functions.py
      |
      |-- setup.py

Start by creating a new directory with the name you want to use for your package. Note that names must use only lowercase letters and underscores. (Dashes are not allowed!)

In this directory, you will need to create an empty file called setup.py. (We will add content to this file in the next step.)

You will also create a subdirectory for each module you want in your package. Since we're creating the most minimal package possible, we will have just one module, and we will name it the same as our package (contoso_functions).

In this module subdirectory, you will create two empty files: __init__.py and functions.py. Again, we will add content to these files below.

Step 3: Define Package Properties in setup.py

The setup.py file is a very basic Python script that calls a function called setup and passes parameters that describe your package. This includes the name of the package, a description, and information about the author. (That's you!)

Here is the content of the script for our Contoso example:

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='contoso_functions',
        version='0.1',
        description='custom business functions for Contoso, Inc.',
        url='http://contoso.com',
        author='Jeremy Peach',
        author_email='jeremy@contoso.com',
        license='MIT',
        packages=['contoso_functions'])

Step 4: Fill in the __init__.py File

The __init__.py file contains Python code that will be executed whenever the module is loaded in your notebook. This can be used to initialize variables or run an initialization function automatically.

However, for a bare minimum package, you just need to put one line of code in your script that will load all of the functions you define in your functions.py file.

from .functions import *

Step 5: Write Code!

Now comes the fun part... you get to actually write your Python code. For this super basic Python package, we will just pile all of our Python functions into a single file called functions.py.

Step 6: Build the Package

We have now provided all of the content that we need for our package. Now we use the Python build tools to combine all of our code into a single package file. For maximum compatibility with Databricks, we will create our package using Python's "wheel" format.

To build the package, open a console, and switch to the directory where you put your setup.py file. (In our example, this would be in the top-level contoso_functions directory.) Then use Python to execute the setup.py script with the following command:

python setup.py bdist_wheel

This process will create new subdirectories in our package directory that contain the intermediate artifacts of the build process. You can ignore the build subdirectory and the contoso_functions.egg-info subdirectory. The good stuff (i.e. our package file) can be found in the dist subdirectory.

The dist subdirectory should contain one file:

contoso_functions-0.1-py3-none-any.whl

The file's extra long name contains information about the package version ("0.1"), the version of Python used ("py3"), something called the "ABI tag" value ("none"), and the platform for which the package was built ("any").

Step 7: Upload the Package to Databricks

Now that we've built our package, let's upload it to Databricks so we can use it in our notebooks. To do this, we will create a new Library in our Databricks workspace.

To create a library, log in to Databricks and open the "Workspace" pane. Right-click the directory where you want to install the library and select "Create > Library".

On the "Create Library" screen, select "Upload" as the library source and select "Python Whl" as the library type.

Upload the .whl file created in the previous step.

Once your libary is created in Databricks, you must install it on your cluster before you can use it in your notebooks.

Step 8: Use Your Functions in a Notebook

Once you have installed your library on your cluster, you can start using your custom Python functions in your Databricks notebooks. You only need to import the functions you wish to use from your module.

Next Steps

Now that you've got a very basic Python library created, you can continue to grow and refine your collection of custom Python functions.

• Structure Your Code: Instead of dumping all of your functions into just one file, you can split them into multiple files for easier management.

• Multiple Modules: As the number of files increases, you may want to organize your functions into multiple modules. This will give you more control over which functions get imported into which notebooks.

• Deploy with Azure DevOps: Eventually your simple catalog of Python functions could grow to become a complex piece of software with multiple members of your team contributing code and deployments of the library in multiple Databricks workspaces. To manage the development and deployment of the library, you might consider a tool like Azure DevOps.