128 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
128 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
PEP: 229
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Title: Using Distutils to Build Python
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Version: $Revision$
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Last-Modified: $Date$
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Author: A.M. Kuchling <amk@amk.ca>
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Status: Final
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Type: Standards Track
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Content-Type: text/x-rst
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Created: 16-Nov-2000
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Post-History:
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Introduction
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============
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The Modules/Setup mechanism has some flaws:
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* People have to remember to uncomment bits of Modules/Setup in
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order to get all the possible modules.
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* Moving Setup to a new version of Python is tedious; new modules
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have been added, so you can't just copy the older version, but
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have to reconcile the two versions.
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* Users have to figure out where the needed libraries, such as
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``zlib``, are installed.
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Proposal
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========
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Use the Distutils to build the modules that come with Python.
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The changes can be broken up into several pieces:
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1. The Distutils needs some Python modules to be able to build
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modules. Currently I believe the minimal list is posix, _sre,
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and string.
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These modules will have to be built before the Distutils can be
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used, so they'll simply be hardwired into Modules/Makefile and
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be automatically built.
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2. A top-level setup.py script will be written that checks the
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libraries installed on the system and compiles as many modules
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as possible.
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3. Modules/Setup will be kept and settings in it will override
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setup.py's usual behavior, so you can disable a module known
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to be buggy, or specify particular compilation or linker flags.
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However, in the common case where setup.py works correctly,
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everything in Setup will remain commented out. The other
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Setup.* become unnecessary, since nothing will be generating
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Setup automatically.
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The patch was checked in for Python 2.1, and has been subsequently
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modified.
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Implementation
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==============
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Patch #102588 on SourceForge contains the proposed patch.
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Currently the patch tries to be conservative and to change as few
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files as possible, in order to simplify backing out the patch.
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For example, no attempt is made to rip out the existing build
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mechanisms. Such simplifications can wait for later in the beta
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cycle, when we're certain the patch will be left in, or they can
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wait for Python 2.2.
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The patch makes the following changes:
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* Makes some required changes to distutils/sysconfig (these will
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be checked in separately)
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* In the top-level Makefile.in, the "sharedmods" target simply
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runs "./python setup.py build", and "sharedinstall" runs
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"./python setup.py install". The "clobber" target also deletes
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the build/ subdirectory where Distutils puts its output.
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* Modules/Setup.config.in only contains entries for the gc and thread
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modules; the readline, curses, and db modules are removed because
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it's now setup.py's job to handle them.
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* Modules/Setup.dist now contains entries for only 3 modules --
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_sre, posix, and strop.
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* The configure script builds setup.cfg from setup.cfg.in. This
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is needed for two reasons: to make building in subdirectories
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work, and to get the configured installation prefix.
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* Adds setup.py to the top directory of the source tree. setup.py
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is the largest piece of the puzzle, though not the most
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complicated. setup.py contains a subclass of the BuildExt
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class, and extends it with a detect_modules() method that does
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the work of figuring out when modules can be compiled, and adding
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them to the 'exts' list.
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Unresolved Issues
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=================
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Do we need to make it possible to disable the 3 hard-wired modules
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without manually hacking the Makefiles? [Answer: No.]
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The Distutils always compile modules as shared libraries. How do
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we support compiling them statically into the resulting Python
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binary?
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[Answer: building a Python binary with the Distutils should be
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feasible, though no one has implemented it yet. This should be
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done someday, but isn't a pressing priority as messing around with
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the top-level Makefile.pre.in is good enough.]
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Copyright
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=========
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This document has been placed in the public domain.
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..
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Local Variables:
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mode: indented-text
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indent-tabs-mode: nil
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End:
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