What is a WHL file?

A WHL (Wheel) file is a distribution package file saved in Python’s wheel format. It is a standard format installation of Python distributions and contains all the files and metadata required for installation. The WHL file also contains information about the Python versions and platforms supported by this wheel file. Similar to an MSI setup file, WHL file format is a ready-to-install format that allows running the installation package without building the source distribution.

WHL File Format

WHL file format is a ZIP (.zip) archive that contains all the installation files and metadata required by installers for installation of a package. These WHL files can be extracted using unzip option or standard decompression software applications such as WinZIP and WinRAR.

WHL File Name Convention

A WHL file is named as per the following convention.

{dist}-{version}(-{build})?-{python}-{abi}-{platform}.whl

An example of the WHL file name is as follow.

cryptography-2.9.2-cp35-abi3-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl
  • cryptography is the package name.
  • 2.9.2 is the package version of cryptography. A version is a PEP 440-compliant string such as 2.9.2, 3.4, or 3.9.0.a3.
  • cp35 is the Python tag and denotes the Python implementation and version that the wheel demands.
  • abi3 is the ABI tag. ABI stands for application binary interface.
  • macosx_10_9_x86_64 is the platform tag, which happens to be quite a mouthful.

References