# Proper place for dependencies (the deps folder)

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** package\
**Created:** [January 21, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900 "2019-01-21T23:20:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900/1 "2019-01-21T23:20:00Z")

</div>

Consider the following: there is a package P, which depends on a library L in the C language. The library L is bundled with the package P. To use the package P, the user needs to get the library L compiled with the script `P/deps/build.jl`. The question is what is the proper place for the library L?

Is it better to have `P/deps/L`, or can the library L live anywhere within the package P tree, for instance as `P/L` or `P/libs/L`? Does it matter? What are the conventions?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chakravala](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/chakravala/32/6832_2.png) [@chakravala](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/chakravala)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900/2 "2019-01-21T23:27:33Z")

</div>

Normally, i would place it in `deps`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PetrKryslUCSD](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/petrkryslucsd/32/215825_2.png) [@PetrKryslUCSD](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PetrKryslUCSD)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900/3 "2019-01-22T00:53:59Z")

</div>

Thanks. Is that an opinion or you know this to be the established practice?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chakravala](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/chakravala/32/6832_2.png) [@chakravala](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/chakravala)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2019, 1:04am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/proper-place-for-dependencies-the-deps-folder/19900/4 "2019-01-22T01:04:23Z")

</div>

It’s fairly common to do, I believe. I’ve done it here [https://github.com/chakravala/Reduce.jl/tree/master/deps](https://github.com/chakravala/Reduce.jl/tree/master/deps)

But now that I think about it, there might be some advantage to choosing an independent download / install location within `.julia` directory to make the install independent of the package source location…
