The good news: Along with Python-2.4 comes really good news to Windows users. Yes, you now CAN build extension modules yourself using the SAME C++ compiler and linker Python is built with itself. Everything you need is available at no costs (except download hassle and installation time). Once your system is set up properly its just a matter of running 'python setup.py build'. No longer waiting for someone else to build binaries and a relief to those who kindly used to provide those binaries.
The bad news: It's not easy to get there! Gathering information and packages and finding out about all the little steps and stumbling blocks may be very time consuming. Relax: Here's (much of) what you need to know. With this document I'm trying to provide the information I would have needed. It's sort of a step by step instruction and contains some details. Goal: Compile Python-2.4 extensions with the freely available "Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003". This document DOES NOT address the issue of compiling Python itself. The example chosen to build is the "MySQLdb" module with its _mysql.pyd extension. Go and check out Mike Fletcher's page first at http://www.vrplumber.com/programming/mstoolkit/ It's his work (and the need to get a working MySQLdb for Python-2.4 of course ;-) that motivated me to start and spend some hours. Without Mike's page I wouldn't even have tried. Thank you so much! Now I'm prepared. Two things first - not to forget: (1) In contrast to what Mike writes I had to use a different registry key (see step 9) (2) I don't now what people mean when talking about "msvcr71.lib". There's no such file on my machine. BUT there IS a "msvcrt.lib" a directory "C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib". I guess the ".\Vc7\." indicates we are talking of the expected lib. Correct? I don't know. Attention - long lines: Watch out for long lines that may have gotten split in this posting! See if you've got something already. These are important directories we're looking for. When "echo %ProgramFiles%" gives "C:\Programme" there should be: C:\Programme\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows XP SP2\Include C:\Programme\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows XP SP2\Lib C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib C:\Programme\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\include C:\Programme\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Lib Step By Step ============ 1. Set up a Windows machine 1.1 Install Windows XP (Prof. or Home doesn't matter) 1.2 Apply Service Pack 2 (WinXP SP2) 1.3 Perform a Windows update at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to get the latest patches. 2. Get some tools This is optional - you don't have to. But it may be instructive and helpful. And - I would say - fun. 2.1 Get "Windows Resource Kits" Brings some useful tools like "CMD Prompt Here" to the windows explorer context menu or "robocopy.exe" - a copy tools really worth to look at. Seems MS developers need good tools too ... http://www.microsoft.com/windows/reskits/default.asp The website says: """ Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools The Resource Kit Tools are a set of software tools for network administrators, developers, and power users to manage TCP/IP, networks, the registry, security, remote administration, configuration, batch files, and many other areas of the Windows Server 2003 operating system. To install the tools, download and run Rktools.exe. """ (rktools.exe, 12.337.752 bytes). 2.2 Add some Unix to Windows. Goto http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/ and get UnxUtils.zip (4.125 kB) """ Here are some ports of common GNU utilities to native Win32. In this context, native means the executables do only depend on the Microsoft C-runtime (msvcrt.dll) and not an emulation layer like that provided by Cygwin tools. """ For example, this gives you "diff.exe" and "patch.exe". 3. Get and install the the .NET Framework 1.1. It's available at no costs from the MicroSoft website. Use Google to find the download page. 3.1 Install the ".NET Framework 1.1 runtime" first (dotnetfx.exe, 24.277.024 bytes) 3.2 Install the .NET Framework 1.1 SDK" second. (setup(sdk1.1).exe, 117.062.664 bytes). Attention, observation: This step should indeed create the badly needed C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib folder. It didn't on my machine until I first completely deinstalled on existing installation of .NET Framework 1.1 runtime AND .NET Framework 1.1 SDK and then resumed with steps 3.1 and 3.2. Only Redmond will know why - and I doubt it. 3.3 Perform a Windows update at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to get the latest patches of the .NET Framework. 4. Platform SDK Get and install the platform SDK "Windows XP SP2 SDK" (about 266.000.00 bytes) from http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/platformsdk/sdkupdate/XPSP2FULLInstall.htm You better download the whole stuff (several .CAB-files) first instead of trying to install online. This may be too risky. 5. Get and install free "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" This is the C++ compiler and linker. Use Google to find the "Microsoft VisualC++ Toolkit 2003" download page and get "VCToolkitSetup.exe" (32.948.392 bytes). The website says: """ Overview The Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 includes the core tools developers need to compile and link C++-based applications for Windows and the .NET Common Language Runtime: Microsoft C/C++ Optimizing Compiler and Linker. These are the same compiler and linker that ship with Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional! C Runtime Library and the C++ Standard Library, including the Standard Template Library. These are the same static-link libraries included with Visual Studio. Microsoft .NET Framework Common Language Runtime. Visual C++ can optionally build applications that target the Common LanguageRuntime (CLR). Sample code. The toolkit includes four samples designed to showcase the powerful new features of the 2003 version, including new optimization capabilities, features to improve code-security and robustness, enhanced ISO C++ standards support, and the ability to use the .NET Framework library and target the CLR. """ 6. Be sure that all components are up to date and do a Windows update at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com 7. Install Python-2.4 to C:\Python24 8. Modify the Python distutils Make a backup of C:\Python24\Lib\distutils\msvccompiler.py and apply the patches as described in http://www.vrplumber.com/programming/mstoolkit/ to this file. You can do this by hand or use "patch.exe" which you've gotten if you did follow step 2.2. There should be a file "msvccompiler-patch.txt" appended to this message. patch.exe msvccompiler.py msvccompiler-patch.txt should succeed with no error. 9. Verify registry key of platform SDK Start "regedit.exe" from the commandline and check for the registry key of the platform SKD. ON MY MACHINE and in my case it is different from the one listed on http://www.vrplumber.com/programming/mstoolkit/ It is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MicrosoftSDK\InstalledSDKs\B44C7E10-89BD-4A32-A3BF-D9D0BC4C9A05 and it is not ...\63DADB24-DC99-45EB-A748-EC93AB8A7497. Find out about the correct key in your case and adjust the crucial line 133 in msvccompiler.py: freeSDK=r"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MicrosoftSDK\InstalledSDKs\B44C7E10-89BD-4A32-A3BF-D9D0BC4C9A05" If the key is wrong, you may encounter something like: """ C:\> python setup.py build running build running build_ext error: Python was built with version 7.1 of Visual Studio, and extensions need to be built with the same version of the ompiler, but it isn't installed. """ 10. Create a script file "pathsetup.bat" hat helps you set up the necessary paths. We don't need to add the Python24 lib and include paths as the distutils will take care for this automatically. ++++++++++++++++ REM START of pathsetup.bat, mb, 2004-12-12 REM add Python-2.4 to path set Path=C:\Python24;%Path% REM add the compiler path set Path=C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin;%Path% REM setup include paths set Include=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows XP SP2\Include;%Include% set Include=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%Include% REM setup Lib paths set Lib=C:\Programme\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows XP SP2\Lib;%Lib% set Lib=C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%Lib% set Lib=C:\Programme\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib;%xxLib% REM END of pathsetup.bat ++++++++++++++++ 11. Source distribution of Python module Get and unpack the source distribution of a module you want to build. In our case get "MySQL-python-1.1.7.tar.gz" from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python or http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=22307&package_id=34790 und unpack to ...\somehwere\MySQL-python-1.1.7 11.1 Read README and setup.py Is there a README in "MySQL-python-1.1.7\"? Yes, there is! It tells you to get additional header and library files from the MySQL website. Looking for version 4.x at http://www.mysql.com/downloads we'll follow version 4.x and be taken to http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/4.0.html Locate "Windows downloads (platform notes)" on that page and download the binary distribution ("Windows (x86) Without installer (unzip in C:\) 4.0.22 20.8M"). The file is "mysql-4.0.22-win-noinstall.zip" (21.346 kB). Since we're not interested in running MySQL but only in building the extension we unzip into ...\MySQL-python-1.1.7\mysql-4.0.22-win 11.2 Make sure the MySQL header and library files are accessible by the C++ compiler and linker. The location is hardcoded in 'setup.py' of the MySQL-python-1.1.7 module. Search for "win32" in 'setup.py' and change references to 'C:\myslq\...' to '.\mysql-4.0.22-win ### >>>>>> schnipp >>>>>>> # setup.py of MySQL-python-1.1.7 elif sys.platform == "win32": # Ugh include_dirs = [r'.\mysql-4.0.22-win\include'] library_dirs = [r'.\mysql-4.0.22-win\lib\opt'] extra_objects = [r'.\mysql-4.0.22-win\lib\opt\mysqlclient.lib'] ### <<<<<< schnapp <<<<<<< 12. Relax. Take a breath. We're ready to go :-) 12.1 Open a command window. 12.2 Run "pathsetup.bat" to setup the environment. 12.3 Change directory and step into ...\MySQL-python-1.1.7, that is, into the root dir of the module you want to build - the dir that contains the "setup.py" file. 12.4 Start building the module including the extension using distutils with the command: python setup.py build 13. There aren't fatal errors? Congratulations, you made it! Why not install then: python setup.py install should do the trick. (Yes, I had two or three warnings. But they don't seem to be important). 14. Earn what you deserve Start Python and import: Python 2.4 (#60, Nov 30 2004, 11:49:19) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import MySQLdb >>> <---------- imported! no error here! Yes, it does import :-) And it does work :-) And _mysql.pyd is similar in size to those versions I had before (about 185 kB) :-) Life goes on. A different time another thread I'm going to ask about the warnings I got with building MySQLdb ... mb - Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
