Building Python using VC++ 6.0 or 5.0
-------------------------------------
This directory is used to build Python for Win32 platforms, e.g. Windows
95, 98 and NT. It requires Microsoft Visual C++ 6.x or 5.x.
(For other Windows platforms and compilers, see ../PC/readme.txt.)
All you need to do is open the workspace "pcbuild.dsw" in MSVC++, select
the Debug or Release setting (using Build -> Set Active Configuration...),
and build the projects.
The proper order to build subprojects:
1) pythoncore (this builds the main Python DLL and library files,
python21.{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; see SUBPROJECTS below)
When using the Debug setting, the output files have a _d added to
their name: python21_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
_sre
Unicode-aware regular expression engine
_symtable
the _symtable module, symtablemodule.c
_testcapi
tests of the Python C API, run via Lib/test/test_capi.py, and
implemented by module Modules/_testcapimodule.c
mmap
mmapmodule.c
parser
the parser module
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
winreg
Windows registry API
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 PCbuilds's parent
directory; for example, if your PCbuild is .......\dist\src\PCbuild\,
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 8.4.1:
Get source
----------
Go to
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tcl/
and download
tcl841-src.zip
tk841-src.zip
Unzip into
dist\tcl8.4.1\
dist\tk8.4.1\
respectively.
Build Tcl first (done here w/ MSVC 6 on Win2K; also Win98SE)
---------------
cd dist\tcl8.4.1\win
run vcvars32.bat [necessary even on Win2K]
nmake -f makefile.vc
nmake -f makefile.vc INSTALLDIR=..\..\tcl84 install
XXX Should we compile with OPTS=threads?
XXX Some tests failed in "nmake -f makefile.vc test".
Build Tk
--------
cd dist\tk8.4.1\win
nmake -f makefile.vc TCLDIR=..\..\tcl8.4.1
nmake -f makefile.vc TCLDIR=..\..\tcl8.4.1 INSTALLDIR=..\..\tcl84 install
XXX Should we compile with OPTS=threads?
XXX Some tests failed in "nmake -f makefile.vc test".
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?
Make sure the installer matches
-------------------------------
Ensure that the Wise compiler vrbl _TCLDIR_ is set to the name of
the common Tcl/Tk installation directory (tcl84 for the instructions
above). This is needed so the installer can copy various Tcl/Tk
files into the Python distribution.
zlib
Python wrapper for the zlib compression library. Get the source code
for version 1.1.4 from a convenient mirror at:
http://www.gzip.org/zlib/
Unpack into dist\zlib-1.1.4.
A custom pre-link step in the zlib project settings should manage to
build zlib-1.1.4\zlib.lib by magic before zlib.pyd (or zlib_d.pyd) is
linked in PCbuild\.
However, the zlib project is not smart enough to remove anything under
zlib-1.1.4\ when you do a clean, so if you want to rebuild zlib.lib
you need to clean up zlib-1.1.4\ by hand.
bz2
Python wrapper for the libbz2 compression library. Homepage
http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/
Download the source tarball, bzip2-1.0.2.tar.gz.
Unpack into dist\bzip2-1.0.2. WARNING: If you're using WinZip, you
must disable its "TAR file smart CR/LF conversion" feature (under
Options -> Configuration -> Miscellaneous -> Other) for the duration.
Don't bother trying to use libbz2.dsp with MSVC. After 10 minutes
of fiddling, I couldn't get it to work. Perhaps it works with
MSVC 5 (I used MSVC 6). It's better to run the by-hand makefile
anyway, because it runs a helpful test step at the end.
cd into dist\bzip2-1.0.2, and run
nmake -f makefile.msc
[Note that if you're running Win9X, you'll need to run vcvars32.bat
before running nmake (this batch file is in your MSVC installation).
TODO: make this work like zlib (in particular, MSVC runs the prelink
step in an enviroment that already has the correct envars set up).
]
The make step shouldn't yield any warnings or errors, and should end
by displaying 6 blocks each terminated with
FC: no differences encountered
If FC finds differences, see the warning abou WinZip above (when I
first tried it, sample3.ref failed due to CRLF conversion).
All of this managed to build bzip2-1.0.2\libbz2.lib, which the Python
project links in.
_bsddb
XXX The Sleepycat release we use will probably change before
XXX 2.3a1.
Go to Sleepycat's patches page:
http://www.sleepycat.com/update/index.html
and download
4.0.14.zip
from the download page. The file name is db-4.0.14.zip. Unpack into
dist\db-4.0.14
Apply the patch file bsddb_patch.txt in this (PCbuild) directory
against the file
dist\db-4.0.14\db\db_reclaim.c
Go to
http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/ref/build_win/intro.html
and follow the instructions for building the Sleepycat software.
Build the Release version.
NOTE: The instructions are for a later release of the software,
so use your imagination. Berkeley_DB.dsw in this release was
also pre-MSVC6, so you'll be prompted to upgrade the format (say
yes, of course). Choose configuration "db_buildall - Win32 Release",
and build db_buildall.exe.
XXX We're actually linking against Release_static\libdb40s.lib.
XXX This yields the following warnings:
"""
Compiling...
_bsddb.c
Linking...
Creating library ./_bsddb.lib and object ./_bsddb.exp
LINK : warning LNK4049: locally defined symbol "_malloc" imported
LINK : warning LNK4049: locally defined symbol "_free" imported
LINK : warning LNK4049: locally defined symbol "_fclose" imported
LINK : warning LNK4049: locally defined symbol "_fopen" imported
_bsddb.pyd - 0 error(s), 4 warning(s)
"""
XXX This isn't encouraging, but I don't know what to do about it.
_ssl
Python wrapper for the secure sockets library.
Get the latest source code for OpenSSL from
http://www.openssl.org
Unpack into the "dist" directory, retaining the folder name from
the archive - for example, the latest stable OpenSSL will install as
dist/openssl-0.9.6g
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 <wink>
The MSVC project simply invokes PCBuild/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.
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.