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Building C and C++ Extensions with distutils
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.. sectionauthor:: Martin v. Löwis <martin@v.loewis.de>
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Starting in Python 1.4, Python provides, on Unix, a special make file for
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building make files for building dynamically-linked extensions and custom
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interpreters. Starting with Python 2.0, this mechanism (known as related to
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Makefile.pre.in, and Setup files) is no longer supported. Building custom
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interpreters was rarely used, and extension modules can be built using
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Building an extension module using distutils requires that distutils is
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installed on the build machine, which is included in Python 2.x and available
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separately for Python 1.5. Since distutils also supports creation of binary
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packages, users don't necessarily need a compiler and distutils to install the
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A distutils package contains a driver script, :file:`setup.py`. This is a plain
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Python file, which, in the most simple case, could look like this::
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from distutils.core import setup, Extension
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module1 = Extension('demo',
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setup (name = 'PackageName',
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description = 'This is a demo package',
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ext_modules = [module1])
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With this :file:`setup.py`, and a file :file:`demo.c`, running ::
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will compile :file:`demo.c`, and produce an extension module named ``demo`` in
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the :file:`build` directory. Depending on the system, the module file will end
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up in a subdirectory :file:`build/lib.system`, and may have a name like
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:file:`demo.so` or :file:`demo.pyd`.
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In the :file:`setup.py`, all execution is performed by calling the ``setup``
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function. This takes a variable number of keyword arguments, of which the
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example above uses only a subset. Specifically, the example specifies
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meta-information to build packages, and it specifies the contents of the
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package. Normally, a package will contain of addition modules, like Python
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source modules, documentation, subpackages, etc. Please refer to the distutils
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documentation in :ref:`distutils-index` to learn more about the features of
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distutils; this section explains building extension modules only.
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It is common to pre-compute arguments to :func:`setup`, to better structure the
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driver script. In the example above, the\ ``ext_modules`` argument to
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:func:`setup` is a list of extension modules, each of which is an instance of
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the :class:`Extension`. In the example, the instance defines an extension named
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``demo`` which is build by compiling a single source file, :file:`demo.c`.
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In many cases, building an extension is more complex, since additional
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preprocessor defines and libraries may be needed. This is demonstrated in the
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from distutils.core import setup, Extension
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module1 = Extension('demo',
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define_macros = [('MAJOR_VERSION', '1'),
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('MINOR_VERSION', '0')],
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include_dirs = ['/usr/local/include'],
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libraries = ['tcl83'],
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library_dirs = ['/usr/local/lib'],
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setup (name = 'PackageName',
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description = 'This is a demo package',
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author = 'Martin v. Loewis',
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author_email = 'martin@v.loewis.de',
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url = 'http://docs.python.org/extending/building',
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long_description = '''
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This is really just a demo package.
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ext_modules = [module1])
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In this example, :func:`setup` is called with additional meta-information, which
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is recommended when distribution packages have to be built. For the extension
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itself, it specifies preprocessor defines, include directories, library
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directories, and libraries. Depending on the compiler, distutils passes this
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information in different ways to the compiler. For example, on Unix, this may
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result in the compilation commands ::
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gcc -DNDEBUG -g -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -DMAJOR_VERSION=1 -DMINOR_VERSION=0 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/local/include/python2.2 -c demo.c -o build/temp.linux-i686-2.2/demo.o
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gcc -shared build/temp.linux-i686-2.2/demo.o -L/usr/local/lib -ltcl83 -o build/lib.linux-i686-2.2/demo.so
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These lines are for demonstration purposes only; distutils users should trust
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that distutils gets the invocations right.
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Distributing your extension modules
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===================================
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When an extension has been successfully build, there are three ways to use it.
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End-users will typically want to install the module, they do so by running ::
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python setup.py install
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Module maintainers should produce source packages; to do so, they run ::
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python setup.py sdist
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In some cases, additional files need to be included in a source distribution;
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this is done through a :file:`MANIFEST.in` file; see the distutils documentation
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If the source distribution has been build successfully, maintainers can also
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create binary distributions. Depending on the platform, one of the following
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commands can be used to do so. ::
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python setup.py bdist_wininst
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python setup.py bdist_rpm
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python setup.py bdist_dumb