export_sources()

Equivalent to the exports_sources attribute, but in method form. This method will be called at export time, which happens in conan export and conan create commands, and it is intended to allow copying files from the user folder to the Conan cache folders, those files becoming part of the recipe sources. These sources will be uploaded to the servers together with the recipe, but are typically not downloaded unless the package is being built from source.

The current working directory will be self.recipe_folder, and it can use the self.export_sources_folder as the destination folder for using copy() or your custom copy.

from conan import ConanFile
from conan.tools.files import copy

class Pkg(ConanFile):
    def export_sources(self):
        # This LICENSE.md is a source file intended to be part of the final package
        # it is not the license of the current recipe
        copy(self, "LICENSE.md", self.recipe_folder, self.export_sources_folder)

The method might be able to read files in the recipe folder and do something with it:

import os
from conan import ConanFile
from conan.tools.files import load, save

class Pkg(ConanFile):

    def export_sources(self):
        content = load(self, os.path.join(self.recipe_folder, "data.txt"))
        save(self, os.path.join(self.export_sources_folder, "myfile.txt"), content)

The export_conandata_patches() is a high-level helper function that does the export of the patches defined in the conandata.yml file, which could be later applied with apply_conandata_patches() in the source() method.

from conan.tools.files import export_conandata_patches

class Pkg(ConanFile):

    def export_sources(self):
        export_conandata_patches(self)

Note

Best practices

• The recipe sources must be configuration independent. Those sources are common for all configurations, thus it is not possible to do conditional export_sources() to different settings, options, or platforms. Do not try to do any kind of conditional export. If necessary export all the files necessary for all configurations at once.

• The export_sources() method does not receive any information from profiles, not even conf. Only the global.conf will be available, and in any case it is not possible to use that conf to define conditionals.

• Keep the export_source() method simple. Its intention is to copy files from the user folder to the cache to store those files together with the recipe.