Yeah, docs are a bit fuzzy and I&#x27;m not exactly sure what the right answer is.<p>So there are actually two ways to go about it AFAIK and I&#x27;m not entirely sure which one is the best. One is to list files in MANIFEST.in and then access it via __file__, but I <i>think</i> this doesn&#x27;t work if your module gets turned into an egg&#x2F;wheel (it&#x27;s for source dists).<p>On the other hand is using pkg_resources, where you declare the list of files in the package_data argument to setup in your setup.py. You can then get the <i>contents</i> of that file (not its path) by importing the pkg_resources package, which provides a lookup table of loaded resources. This [apparently] works for binary dists but not source dists (the opposite of MANIFEST).<p>I&#x27;ve used pkg_resources without issue myself, but it&#x27;s possible I just have been lucky. In any event, here&#x27;s a few links discussing the differences and also how to use pkg_resources:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;7522250&#x2F;how-to-include-package-data-with-setuptools-distribute" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;stackoverflow.com&#x2F;questions&#x2F;7522250&#x2F;how-to-include-pa...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.codekills.net&#x2F;2011&#x2F;07&#x2F;15&#x2F;lies,-more-lies-and-python-packaging-documentation-on--package_data-&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.codekills.net&#x2F;2011&#x2F;07&#x2F;15&#x2F;lies,-more-lies-and-pyt...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;peak.telecommunity.com&#x2F;DevCenter&#x2F;PythonEggs#accessing-package-resources" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;peak.telecommunity.com&#x2F;DevCenter&#x2F;PythonEggs#accessing...</a><p>If you want an example, here&#x27;s a package I made that uses pkg_resources (I make no promises that this is the right way to do it, but it works for me):<p>(setup.py, see line 10) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;setup.py" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;setup.py</a><p>(the data file I want to include) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;tree&#x2F;master&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;data" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;tree&#x2F;master&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;data</a><p>(where the code loads the data file, see line 67) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;materials.py" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jasonmhite&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;blob&#x2F;master&#x2F;gefry2&#x2F;mate...</a>