python-peps/pep-0229.txt

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PEP: 229
Title: Using Distutils to Build Python
Version: $Revision$
Author: akuchlin@mems-exchange.org (A.M. Kuchling)
Status: Draft
Type: Standards
Created: 16-Nov-2000
Post-History:
Introduction
The Modules/Setup mechanism has some flaws:
* People have to remember to uncomment bits of Modules/Setup in
order to get all the possible modules.
* Moving Setup to a new version of Python is tedious; new modules
have been added, so you can't just copy the older version, but
have to reconcile the two versions.
* Users have to figure out where the needed libraries, such as
zlib, are installed.
Proposal
Use the Distutils to build the modules that come with Python.
The changes can be broken up into several pieces:
1. The Distutils needs some Python modules to be able to build
modules. Currently I believe the minimal list is posix, _sre,
and string.
These modules will have to be built before the Distutils can be
used, so they'll simply be hardwired into Modules/Makefile and
be automatically built.
2. A top-level setup.py script will be written that checks the
libraries installed on the system and compiles as many modules
as possible.
3. Modules/Setup will be kept and settings in it will override
setup.py's usual behavior, so you can disable a module known
to be buggy, or specify particular compilation or linker flags.
However, in the common case where setup.py works correctly,
everything in Setup will remain commented out. The other
Setup.* become unnecessary, since nothing will be generating
Setup automatically.
Unresolved Issues
Do we need to make it possible to disable the 3 hard-wired modules
without manually hacking the Makefiles? If yes, perhaps a
configure switch is sufficient.
The Distutils always compile modules as shared libraries. How do
we support compiling them statically into the resulting Python
binary?
makesetup and the other contents of $(LIBPL)/config need to be
preserved for compatibility with existing modules; for how many
versions do we need to keep them around?
Copyright
This document has been placed in the public domain.
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