Building Python using VC++ 7.1 ------------------------------------- This directory is used to build Python for Win32 platforms, e.g. Windows 95, 98 and NT. It requires Microsoft Visual C++ 7.1 (a.k.a. Visual Studio .NET 2003). (For other Windows platforms and compilers, see ../PC/readme.txt.) All you need to do is open the workspace "pcbuild.sln" in MSVC++, select the Debug or Release setting (using "Solution Configuration" from the "Standard" toolbar"), and build the projects. The proper order to build subprojects: 1) pythoncore (this builds the main Python DLL and library files, python26.{dll, lib} in Release mode) NOTE: in previous releases, this subproject was named after the release number, e.g. python20. 2) python (this builds the main Python executable, python.exe in Release mode) 3) the other subprojects, as desired or needed (note: you probably don't want to build most of the other subprojects, unless you're building an entire Python distribution from scratch, or specifically making changes to the subsystems they implement, or are running a Python core buildbot test slave; see SUBPROJECTS below) When using the Debug setting, the output files have a _d added to their name: python26_d.dll, python_d.exe, parser_d.pyd, and so on. SUBPROJECTS ----------- These subprojects should build out of the box. Subprojects other than the main ones (pythoncore, python, pythonw) generally build a DLL (renamed to .pyd) from a specific module so that users don't have to load the code supporting that module unless they import the module. pythoncore .dll and .lib python .exe pythonw pythonw.exe, a variant of python.exe that doesn't pop up a DOS box _socket socketmodule.c _testcapi tests of the Python C API, run via Lib/test/test_capi.py, and implemented by module Modules/_testcapimodule.c pyexpat Python wrapper for accelerated XML parsing, which incorporates stable code from the Expat project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/expat/ select selectmodule.c unicodedata large tables of Unicode data winsound play sounds (typically .wav files) under Windows The following subprojects will generally NOT build out of the box. They wrap code Python doesn't control, and you'll need to download the base packages first and unpack them into siblings of PC's parent directory; for example, if this directory is ....\dist\trunk\PC\VS7.1, unpack into new subdirectories of dist\. _tkinter Python wrapper for the Tk windowing system. Requires building Tcl/Tk first. Following are instructions for Tcl/Tk 8.4.12. Get source ---------- In the dist directory, run svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/tcl8.4.12 svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/tk8.4.12 svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/tix-8.4.0 Build Tcl first (done here w/ MSVC 7.1 on Windows XP) --------------- Use "Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 -> Visual Studio .NET Tools -> Visual Studio .NET 2003 Command Prompt" to get a shell window with the correct environment settings cd dist\tcl8.4.12\win nmake -f makefile.vc nmake -f makefile.vc INSTALLDIR=..\..\tcltk install XXX Should we compile with OPTS=threads? Optional: run tests, via nmake -f makefile.vc test On WinXP Pro, wholly up to date as of 30-Aug-2004: all.tcl: Total 10678 Passed 9969 Skipped 709 Failed 0 Sourced 129 Test Files. Build Tk -------- cd dist\tk8.4.12\win nmake -f makefile.vc TCLDIR=..\..\tcl8.4.12 nmake -f makefile.vc TCLDIR=..\..\tcl8.4.12 INSTALLDIR=..\..\tcltk install XXX Should we compile with OPTS=threads? XXX Our installer copies a lot of stuff out of the Tcl/Tk install XXX directory. Is all of that really needed for Python use of Tcl/Tk? Optional: run tests, via nmake -f makefile.vc TCLDIR=..\..\tcl8.4.12 test On WinXP Pro, wholly up to date as of 30-Aug-2004: all.tcl: Total 8420 Passed 6826 Skipped 1581 Failed 13 Sourced 91 Test Files. Files with failing tests: canvImg.test scrollbar.test textWind.test winWm.test Built Tix --------- cd dist\tix-8.4.0\win nmake -f python.mak nmake -f python.mak install bz2 Python wrapper for the libbz2 compression library. Homepage http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/ Download the source from the python.org copy into the dist directory: svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/bzip2-1.0.3 A custom pre-link step in the bz2 project settings should manage to build bzip2-1.0.3\libbz2.lib by magic before bz2.pyd (or bz2_d.pyd) is linked in VS7.1\. However, the bz2 project is not smart enough to remove anything under bzip2-1.0.3\ when you do a clean, so if you want to rebuild bzip2.lib you need to clean up bzip2-1.0.3\ by hand. The build step shouldn't yield any warnings or errors, and should end by displaying 6 blocks each terminated with FC: no differences encountered All of this managed to build bzip2-1.0.3\libbz2.lib, which the Python project links in. _sqlite3 Python wrapper for SQLite library. Get the source code through svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/sqlite-source-3.3.4 To use the extension module in a Python build tree, copy sqlite3.dll into the VS7.1 folder. _ssl Python wrapper for the secure sockets library. Get the source code through svn export http://svn.python.org/projects/external/openssl-0.9.8a Alternatively, get the latest version from http://www.openssl.org. You can (theoretically) use any version of OpenSSL you like - the build process will automatically select the latest version. You must also install ActivePerl from http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/ as this is used by the OpenSSL build process. Complain to them . The MSVC project simply invokes build_ssl.py to perform the build. This Python script locates and builds your OpenSSL installation, then invokes a simple makefile to build the final .pyd. build_ssl.py attempts to catch the most common errors (such as not being able to find OpenSSL sources, or not being able to find a Perl that works with OpenSSL) and give a reasonable error message. If you have a problem that doesn't seem to be handled correctly (eg, you know you have ActivePerl but we can't find it), please take a peek at build_ssl.py and suggest patches. Note that build_ssl.py should be able to be run directly from the command-line. build_ssl.py/MSVC isn't clever enough to clean OpenSSL - you must do this by hand. Building for Itanium -------------------- The project files support a ReleaseItanium configuration which creates Win64/Itanium binaries. For this to work, you need to install the Platform SDK, in particular the 64-bit support. This includes an Itanium compiler (future releases of the SDK likely include an AMD64 compiler as well). In addition, you need the Visual Studio plugin for external C compilers, from http://sf.net/projects/vsextcomp. The plugin will wrap cl.exe, to locate the proper target compiler, and convert compiler options accordingly. The project files require atleast version 0.9. Building for AMD64 ------------------ The build process for the ReleaseAMD64 configuration is very similar to the Itanium configuration; make sure you use the latest version of vsextcomp. Building Python Using the free MS Toolkit Compiler -------------------------------------------------- The build process for Visual C++ can be used almost unchanged with the free MS Toolkit Compiler. This provides a way of building Python using freely available software. Note that Microsoft have withdrawn the free MS Toolkit Compiler, so this can no longer be considered a supported option. The instructions are still correct, but you need to already have a copy of the compiler in order to use them. Microsoft now supply Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition for free, but this is NOT compatible with Visual C++ 7.1 (it uses a different C runtime), and so cannot be used to build a version of Python compatible with the standard python.org build. If you are interested in using Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition, however, you should look at the PCBuild directory. Requirements To build Python, the following tools are required: * The Visual C++ Toolkit Compiler no longer available for download - see above * A recent Platform SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=484269e2-3b89-47e3-8eb7-1f2be6d7123a * The .NET 1.1 SDK from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9b3a2ca6-3647-4070-9f41-a333c6b9181d [Does anyone have better URLs for the last 2 of these?] The toolkit compiler is needed as it is an optimising compiler (the compiler supplied with the .NET SDK is a non-optimising version). The platform SDK is needed to provide the Windows header files and libraries (the Windows 2003 Server SP1 edition, typical install, is known to work - other configurations or versions are probably fine as well). The .NET 1.1 SDK is needed because it contains a version of msvcrt.dll which links to the msvcr71.dll CRT. Note that the .NET 2.0 SDK is NOT acceptable, as it references msvcr80.dll. All of the above items should be installed as normal. If you intend to build the openssl (needed for the _ssl extension) you will need the C runtime sources installed as part of the platform SDK. In addition, you will need Nant, available from http://nant.sourceforge.net. The 0.85 release candidate 3 version is known to work. This is the latest released version at the time of writing. Later "nightly build" versions are known NOT to work - it is not clear at present whether future released versions will work. Setting up the environment Start a platform SDK "build environment window" from the start menu. The "Windows XP 32-bit retail" version is known to work. Add the following directories to your PATH: * The toolkit compiler directory * The SDK "Win64" binaries directory * The Nant directory Add to your INCLUDE environment variable: * The toolkit compiler INCLUDE directory Add to your LIB environment variable: * The toolkit compiler LIB directory * The .NET SDK Visual Studio 2003 VC7\lib directory The following commands should set things up as you need them: rem Set these values according to where you installed the software set TOOLKIT=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 set SDK=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK set NET=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 set NANT=C:\Utils\Nant set PATH=%TOOLKIT%\bin;%PATH%;%SDK%\Bin\win64;%NANT%\bin set INCLUDE=%TOOLKIT%\include;%INCLUDE% set LIB=%TOOLKIT%\lib;%NET%\VC7\lib;%LIB% The "win64" directory from the SDK is added to supply executables such as "cvtres" and "lib", which are not available elsewhere. The versions in the "win64" directory are 32-bit programs, so they are fine to use here. That's it. To build Python (the core only, no binary extensions which depend on external libraries) you just need to issue the command nant -buildfile:python.build all from within the VS7.1 directory. Extension modules To build those extension modules which require external libraries (_tkinter, bz2, _sqlite3, _ssl) you can follow the instructions for the Visual Studio build above, with a few minor modifications. These instructions have only been tested using the sources in the Python subversion repository - building from original sources should work, but has not been tested. For each extension module you wish to build, you should remove the associated include line from the excludeprojects section of pc.build. The changes required are: _tkinter The tix makefile (tix-8.4.0\win\makefile.vc) must be modified to remove references to TOOLS32. The relevant lines should be changed to read: cc32 = cl.exe link32 = link.exe include32 = The remainder of the build instructions will work as given. bz2 No changes are needed _sqlite3 No changes are needed. However, in order for the tests to succeed, a copy of sqlite3.dll must be downloaded, and placed alongside python.exe. _ssl The documented build process works as written. However, it needs a copy of the file setargv.obj, which is not supplied in the platform SDK. However, the sources are available (in the crt source code). To build setargv.obj, proceed as follows: Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and internal.h from %SDK%\src\crt to a temporary directory. Compile using "cl /c /I. /MD /D_CRTBLD setargv.c" Copy the resulting setargv.obj to somewhere on your LIB environment (%SDK%\lib is a reasonable place). With setargv.obj in place, the standard build process should work fine. YOUR OWN EXTENSION DLLs ----------------------- If you want to create your own extension module DLL, there's an example with easy-to-follow instructions in ../PC/example/; read the file readme.txt there first.