blob: 8f0024a3ca7878c4641b6885d7c559c1e50a786c [file] [log] [blame]
Barry Warsaw6af16192008-09-18 04:33:43 +00001This is Python version 2.6 release candidate 2
Barry Warsaw1e62aec2008-09-12 23:25:57 +00002==============================================
Guido van Rossum91447632000-04-11 17:11:09 +00003
Barry Warsaw189b6d82008-03-01 03:15:20 +00004Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Anthony Baxter83955ef2007-01-06 04:45:54 +00005Python Software Foundation.
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00006All rights reserved.
7
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00008Copyright (c) 2000 BeOpen.com.
9All rights reserved.
10
Guido van Rossum23f7aed2001-04-12 20:53:31 +000011Copyright (c) 1995-2001 Corporation for National Research Initiatives.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000012All rights reserved.
13
Guido van Rossum6ebd2992000-09-03 04:47:47 +000014Copyright (c) 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000015All rights reserved.
16
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000017
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000018License information
19-------------------
20
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000021See the file "LICENSE" for information on the history of this
22software, terms & conditions for usage, and a DISCLAIMER OF ALL
23WARRANTIES.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000024
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000025This Python distribution contains no GNU General Public Licensed
26(GPLed) code so it may be used in proprietary projects just like prior
27Python distributions. There are interfaces to some GNU code but these
28are entirely optional.
29
30All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective
31holders.
Guido van Rossum79808261997-12-11 18:01:47 +000032
33
Guido van Rossum8d7d4ed1996-07-30 21:41:07 +000034What's new in this release?
35---------------------------
Guido van Rossum3ff96dd1996-07-30 18:05:04 +000036
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +000037See the file "Misc/NEWS".
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +000038
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +000039
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +000040If you don't read instructions
41------------------------------
42
43Congratulations on getting this far. :-)
44
45To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the
Guido van Rossum2dcec0c2002-02-04 01:59:23 +000046current directory and when it finishes, type "make". This creates an
47executable "./python"; to install in /usr/local, first do "su root"
48and then "make install".
49
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +000050The section `Build instructions' below is still recommended reading.
Guido van Rossum3ff96dd1996-07-30 18:05:04 +000051
52
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000053What is Python anyway?
54----------------------
55
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +000056Python is an interpreted, interactive object-oriented programming
57language suitable (amongst other uses) for distributed application
58development, scripting, numeric computing and system testing. Python
59is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic or
60Scheme. To find out more about what Python can do for you, point your
61browser to http://www.python.org/.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000062
63
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000064How do I learn Python?
65----------------------
66
Fred Drake0e6444c1999-05-17 19:35:01 +000067The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +000068http://docs.python.org/ for online and downloadable versions, as well
69as a list of other introductions, and reference documentation.
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000070
Guido van Rossumd0a42e22000-03-31 20:16:45 +000071There's a quickly growing set of books on Python. See
Michael W. Hudsonfad46402005-06-16 15:51:20 +000072http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks for a list.
Guido van Rossum8d90f9d1997-05-22 20:13:25 +000073
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000074
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000075Documentation
76-------------
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000077
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000078All documentation is provided online in a variety of formats. In
79order of importance for new users: Tutorial, Library Reference,
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000080Language Reference, Extending & Embedding, and the Python/C API. The
81Library Reference is especially of immense value since much of
82Python's power is described there, including the built-in data types
83and functions!
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000084
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000085All documentation is also available online at the Python web site
Benjamin Peterson9d0b6042008-03-30 19:35:10 +000086(http://docs.python.org/, see below). It is available online for occasional
87reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for faster access. The
Georg Brandl1c88e0f2008-03-30 19:41:39 +000088documentation is downloadable in HTML, PostScript, PDF, LaTeX, and
Benjamin Peterson9d0b6042008-03-30 19:35:10 +000089reStructuredText (2.6+) formats; the LaTeX and reStructuredText versions are
90primarily for documentation authors, translators, and people with special
91formatting requirements.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000092
93
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000094Web sites
95---------
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000096
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000097New Python releases and related technologies are published at
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +000098http://www.python.org/. Come visit us!
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000099
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000100There's also a Python community web site at
101http://starship.python.net/.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000102
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000103
104Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
105----------------------------
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000106
107Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about
108Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup
109for Python-related announcements. These are also accessible as
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000110mailing lists: see http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for an
111overview of these and many other Python-related mailing lists.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000112
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000113Archives are accessible via the Google Groups Usenet archive; see
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000114http://groups.google.com/. The mailing lists are also archived, see
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000115http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for details.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000116
117
118Bug reports
119-----------
120
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000121To report or search for bugs, please use the Python Bug
Andrew M. Kuchling951300e2008-01-04 14:47:17 +0000122Tracker at http://bugs.python.org.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000123
124
125Patches and contributions
126-------------------------
127
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000128To submit a patch or other contribution, please use the Python Patch
Andrew M. Kuchling951300e2008-01-04 14:47:17 +0000129Manager at http://bugs.python.org. Guidelines
130for patch submission may be found at http://www.python.org/dev/patches/.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000131
Benjamin Petersonb2355002008-04-02 21:20:35 +0000132If you have a proposal to change Python, you may want to send an email to the
133comp.lang.python or python-ideas mailing lists for inital feedback. A Python
134Enhancement Proposal (PEP) may be submitted if your idea gains ground. All
135current PEPs, as well as guidelines for submitting a new PEP, are listed at
136http://www.python.org/dev/peps/.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000137
138
139Questions
140---------
141
142For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's
143best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see
144above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000145mailing list, send questions to help@python.org (a group of volunteers
146who answer questions as they can). The newsgroup is the most
147efficient way to ask public questions.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000148
Guido van Rossum901454e2000-06-29 22:28:44 +0000149
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000150Build instructions
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000151==================
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000152
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000153Before you can build Python, you must first configure it.
154Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been automated
155for Unix and Linux installations, so all you usually have to do is
156type a few commands and sit back. There are some platforms where
157things are not quite as smooth; see the platform specific notes below.
158If you want to build for multiple platforms sharing the same source
159tree, see the section on VPATH below.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000160
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000161Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your
162system configuration and creates the Makefile. (It takes a minute or
163two -- please be patient!) You may want to pass options to the
164configure script -- see the section below on configuration options and
165variables. When it's done, you are ready to run make.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000166
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000167To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory.
168If you have changed the configuration, the Makefile may have to be
169rebuilt. In this case you may have to run make again to correctly
170build your desired target. The interpreter executable is built in the
171top level directory.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000172
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000173Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000174testing and installation. If you run into trouble, see the next
175section.
176
177Previous versions of Python used a manual configuration process that
178involved editing the file Modules/Setup. While this file still exists
179and manual configuration is still supported, it is rarely needed any
180more: almost all modules are automatically built as appropriate under
181guidance of the setup.py script, which is run by Make after the
182interpreter has been built.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000183
Guido van Rossum0a516c91994-09-12 10:58:40 +0000184
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000185Troubleshooting
186---------------
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000187
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000188See also the platform specific notes in the next section.
189
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000190If you run into other trouble, see the FAQ
191(http://www.python.org/doc/faq) for hints on what can go wrong, and
192how to fix it.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000193
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000194If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all
195object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or
196not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable
197problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report!
198
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000199If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000200should be there, inspect the config.log file.
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000201
202If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no
203longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000204whether this option is needed; all we can do is test whether it is
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000205accepted without error. On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it
206is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c,
207which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000). If the
208warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from
209the OPT variable.
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000210
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000211If you get failures in test_long, or sys.maxint gets set to -1, you
212are probably experiencing compiler bugs, usually related to
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000213optimization. This is a common problem with some versions of gcc, and
214some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be worked around
215by turning off optimization. Consider switching to stable versions
Anthony Baxtere9d719b2004-11-30 01:49:18 +0000216(gcc 2.95.2, gcc 3.x, or contact your vendor.)
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000217
218From Python 2.0 onward, all Python C code is ANSI C. Compiling using
219old K&R-C-only compilers is no longer possible. ANSI C compilers are
220available for all modern systems, either in the form of updated
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000221compilers from the vendor, or one of the free compilers (gcc).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000222
Georg Brandl250755b2006-11-15 17:42:03 +0000223If "make install" fails mysteriously during the "compiling the library"
224step, make sure that you don't have any of the PYTHONPATH or PYTHONHOME
225environment variables set, as they may interfere with the newly built
226executable which is compiling the library.
227
Martin v. Löwis779ffc02002-12-02 22:17:01 +0000228Unsupported systems
229-------------------
230
Martin v. Löwis8cab8b02006-07-24 05:05:22 +0000231A number of features are not supported in Python 2.5 anymore. Some
232support code is still present, but will be removed in Python 2.6.
Martin v. Löwis779ffc02002-12-02 22:17:01 +0000233If you still need to use current Python versions on these systems,
234please send a message to python-dev@python.org indicating that you
Martin v. Löwis8cab8b02006-07-24 05:05:22 +0000235volunteer to support this system. For a more detailed discussion
236regarding no-longer-supported and resupporting platforms, as well
237as a list of platforms that became or will be unsupported, see PEP 11.
Martin v. Löwis779ffc02002-12-02 22:17:01 +0000238
239More specifically, the following systems are not supported any
240longer:
241- SunOS 4
242- DYNIX
243- dgux
244- Minix
Martin v. Löwis8cab8b02006-07-24 05:05:22 +0000245- NeXT
Martin v. Löwis779ffc02002-12-02 22:17:01 +0000246- Irix 4 and --with-sgi-dl
247- Linux 1
248- Systems defining __d6_pthread_create (configure.in)
249- Systems defining PY_PTHREAD_D4, PY_PTHREAD_D6,
250 or PY_PTHREAD_D7 in thread_pthread.h
251- Systems using --with-dl-dld
Martin v. Löwis7e4cfcb2002-12-19 16:21:49 +0000252- Systems using --without-universal-newlines
Martin v. Löwis8cab8b02006-07-24 05:05:22 +0000253- MacOS 9
254
255The following systems are still supported in Python 2.5, but
256support will be dropped in 2.6:
257- Systems using --with-wctype-functions
258- Win9x, WinME
259
260Warning on install in Windows 98 and Windows Me
261-----------------------------------------------
262
263Following Microsoft's closing of Extended Support for
264Windows 98/ME (July 11, 2006), Python 2.6 will stop
265supporting these platforms. Python development and
266maintainability becomes easier (and more reliable) when
267platform specific code targeting OSes with few users
268and no dedicated expert developers is taken out. The
269vendor also warns that the OS versions listed above
270"can expose customers to security risks" and recommends
271upgrade.
Martin v. Löwis779ffc02002-12-02 22:17:01 +0000272
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000273Platform specific notes
274-----------------------
275
Guido van Rossum0447a321995-10-08 01:22:33 +0000276(Some of these may no longer apply. If you find you can build Python
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000277on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here,
278submit a documentation bug report to SourceForge (see Bug Reports
279above) so we can remove them!)
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000280
Skip Montanaro6dc4a8e2003-05-02 15:27:59 +0000281Unix platforms: If your vendor still ships (and you still use) Berkeley DB
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000282 1.85 you will need to edit Modules/Setup to build the bsddb185
283 module and add a line to sitecustomize.py which makes it the
284 default. In Modules/Setup a line like
Skip Montanaro6dc4a8e2003-05-02 15:27:59 +0000285
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000286 bsddb185 bsddbmodule.c
Skip Montanaro6dc4a8e2003-05-02 15:27:59 +0000287
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000288 should work. (You may need to add -I, -L or -l flags to direct the
289 compiler and linker to your include files and libraries.)
Skip Montanaro6dc4a8e2003-05-02 15:27:59 +0000290
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000291XXX I think this next bit is out of date:
Skip Montanaro6dc4a8e2003-05-02 15:27:59 +0000292
Brett Cannondc48b742007-05-20 07:09:50 +000029364-bit platforms: The modules audioop, and imageop don't work.
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000294 The setup.py script disables them on 64-bit installations.
295 Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They
296 contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a
297 fix, let us know!)
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000298
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000299Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000300 2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest
301 way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as
302 the "CC" environment variable when running the configure
303 script).
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000304
Guido van Rossum42992312002-09-23 14:02:18 +0000305 When using GCC on Solaris, beware of binutils 2.13 or GCC
306 versions built using it. This mistakenly enables the
307 -zcombreloc option which creates broken shared libraries on
308 Solaris. binutils 2.12 works, and the binutils maintainers
Skip Montanaro4de9cba2003-01-03 16:26:23 +0000309 are aware of the problem. Binutils 2.13.1 only partially
310 fixed things. It appears that 2.13.2 solves the problem
311 completely. This problem is known to occur with Solaris 2.7
312 and 2.8, but may also affect earlier and later versions of the
313 OS.
Guido van Rossum42992312002-09-23 14:02:18 +0000314
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000315 When the dynamic loader complains about errors finding shared
316 libraries, such as
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000317
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000318 ld.so.1: ./python: fatal: libstdc++.so.5: open failed:
319 No such file or directory
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000320
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000321 you need to first make sure that the library is available on
322 your system. Then, you need to instruct the dynamic loader how
323 to find it. You can choose any of the following strategies:
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000324
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000325 1. When compiling Python, set LD_RUN_PATH to the directories
326 containing missing libraries.
327 2. When running Python, set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to these directories.
328 3. Use crle(8) to extend the search path of the loader.
329 4. Modify the installed GCC specs file, adding -R options into the
330 *link: section.
Martin v. Löwis9cea5f52002-11-15 07:28:05 +0000331
Skip Montanaro9f6606a2005-11-17 18:19:39 +0000332 The complex object fails to compile on Solaris 10 with gcc 3.4 (at
333 least up to 3.4.3). To work around it, define Py_HUGE_VAL as
334 HUGE_VAL(), e.g.:
335
336 make CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()" -I. -I$(srcdir)/Include'
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000337 ./python setup.py CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()"'
Skip Montanaro9f6606a2005-11-17 18:19:39 +0000338
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000339Linux: A problem with threads and fork() was tracked down to a bug in
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000340 the pthreads code in glibc version 2.0.5; glibc version 2.0.7
341 solves the problem. This causes the popen2 test to fail;
342 problem and solution reported by Pablo Bleyer.
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000343
Martin v. Löwis3efa04a2003-06-14 05:29:27 +0000344Red Hat Linux: Red Hat 9 built Python2.2 in UCS-4 mode and hacked
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000345 Tcl to support it. To compile Python2.3 with Tkinter, you will
346 need to pass --enable-unicode=ucs4 flag to ./configure.
Martin v. Löwis3efa04a2003-06-14 05:29:27 +0000347
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000348 There's an executable /usr/bin/python which is Python
349 1.5.2 on most older Red Hat installations; several key Red Hat tools
350 require this version. Python 2.1.x may be installed as
351 /usr/bin/python2. The Makefile installs Python as
352 /usr/local/bin/python, which may or may not take precedence
353 over /usr/bin/python, depending on how you have set up $PATH.
Guido van Rossum2dcec0c2002-02-04 01:59:23 +0000354
Guido van Rossum59230501999-06-21 20:51:46 +0000355FreeBSD 3.x and probably platforms with NCurses that use libmytinfo or
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000356 similar: When using cursesmodule, the linking is not done in
357 the correct order with the defaults. Remove "-ltermcap" from
358 the readline entry in Setup, and use as curses entry: "curses
359 cursesmodule.c -lmytinfo -lncurses -ltermcap" - "mytinfo" (so
360 called on FreeBSD) should be the name of the auxiliary library
361 required on your platform. Normally, it would be linked
362 automatically, but not necessarily in the correct order.
Guido van Rossum59230501999-06-21 20:51:46 +0000363
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000364BSDI: BSDI versions before 4.1 have known problems with threads,
365 which can cause strange errors in a number of modules (for
366 instance, the 'test_signal' test script will hang forever.)
367 Turning off threads (with --with-threads=no) or upgrading to
368 BSDI 4.1 solves this problem.
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000369
370DEC Unix: Run configure with --with-dec-threads, or with
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000371 --with-threads=no if no threads are desired (threads are on by
372 default). When using GCC, it is possible to get an internal
373 compiler error if optimization is used. This was reported for
374 GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c. Manually compile the affected
375 file without optimization to solve the problem.
Guido van Rossum8eca2c21996-02-14 18:37:46 +0000376
Guido van Rossume1cdb161999-04-10 16:04:07 +0000377DEC Ultrix: compile with GCC to avoid bugs in the native compiler,
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000378 and pass SHELL=/bin/sh5 to Make when installing.
Guido van Rossume1cdb161999-04-10 16:04:07 +0000379
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000380AIX: A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in
381 place. See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done.
382 (The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases
383 has been worked around by a minimal code change.) If you get
384 errors about pthread_* functions, during compile or during
385 testing, try setting CC to a thread-safe (reentrant) compiler,
386 like "cc_r". For full C++ module support, set CC="xlC_r" (or
387 CC="xlC" without thread support).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000388
Guido van Rossuma2534c82005-09-20 19:06:23 +0000389AIX 5.3: To build a 64-bit version with IBM's compiler, I used the
390 following:
391
392 export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/vacpp/bin
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000393 ./configure --with-gcc="xlc_r -q64" --with-cxx="xlC_r -q64" \
Guido van Rossuma2534c82005-09-20 19:06:23 +0000394 --disable-ipv6 AR="ar -X64"
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000395 make
Guido van Rossuma2534c82005-09-20 19:06:23 +0000396
Anthony Baxter7c497472003-10-01 07:24:54 +0000397HP-UX: When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000398 OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight,
399 this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20)
400 even though pyconfig.h defines it. This seems unnecessary when
401 using HP/UX 11 and later - threading seems to work "out of the
402 box".
Anthony Baxter7c497472003-10-01 07:24:54 +0000403
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000404HP-UX ia64: When building on the ia64 (Itanium) platform using HP's
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000405 compiler, some experience has shown that the compiler's
406 optimiser produces a completely broken version of python
407 (see http://www.python.org/sf/814976). To work around this,
408 edit the Makefile and remove -O from the OPT line.
Guido van Rossum539c6622005-09-14 17:49:54 +0000409
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000410 To build a 64-bit executable on an Itanium 2 system using HP's
411 compiler, use these environment variables:
Guido van Rossum539c6622005-09-14 17:49:54 +0000412
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000413 CC=cc
414 CXX=aCC
415 BASECFLAGS="+DD64"
416 LDFLAGS="+DD64 -lxnet"
Guido van Rossum539c6622005-09-14 17:49:54 +0000417
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000418 and call configure as:
Guido van Rossum539c6622005-09-14 17:49:54 +0000419
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000420 ./configure --without-gcc
Guido van Rossum539c6622005-09-14 17:49:54 +0000421
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000422 then *unset* the environment variables again before running
423 make. (At least one of these flags causes the build to fail
424 if it remains set.) You still have to edit the Makefile and
425 remove -O from the OPT line.
Guido van Rossum2094e041998-05-14 15:47:35 +0000426
Guido van Rossum4e1dd7d2002-04-23 13:06:07 +0000427HP PA-RISC 2.0: A recent bug report (http://www.python.org/sf/546117)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000428 suggests that the C compiler in this 64-bit system has bugs
429 in the optimizer that break Python. Compiling without
430 optimization solves the problems.
Guido van Rossum4e1dd7d2002-04-23 13:06:07 +0000431
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000432SCO: The following apply to SCO 3 only; Python builds out of the box
433 on SCO 5 (or so we've heard).
Guido van Rossuma16e2751998-04-13 20:14:05 +0000434
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000435 1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the
436 defs. This is because all the SCO header files are broken.
437 Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is
438 conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000439
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000440 2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt
441 stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS
442 needed be set to:
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000443
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000444 LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i'
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000445
Martin v. Löwis387c5472001-09-06 08:16:17 +0000446UnixWare: There are known bugs in the math library of the system, as well as
447 problems in the handling of threads (calling fork in one
448 thread may interrupt system calls in others). Therefore, test_math and
449 tests involving threads will fail until those problems are fixed.
450
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000451QNX: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
452 configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on
453 ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build,
454 test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX:
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000455
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000456 1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \
457 ./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm=""
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000458
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000459 2) edit Modules/Setup to activate everything that makes sense for
460 your system... tested here at QNX with the following modules:
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000461
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000462 array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath,
463 crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop,
464 _locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre,
Neal Norwitz90340a12007-05-20 18:06:27 +0000465 posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop,
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000466 select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct,
Brett Cannondc48b742007-05-20 07:09:50 +0000467 syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib, audioop, imageop
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000468
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000469 3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000470
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000471 or, if you feel the need for speed:
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000472
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000473 make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt"
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000474
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000475 4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000476
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000477 Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I
478 think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000479
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000480 5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000481
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000482 If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but
483 I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're
484 probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a
485 little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile
486 to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k
Guido van Rossum40d63581997-08-14 19:45:30 +0000487
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000488BeOS: See Misc/BeOS-NOTES for notes about compiling/installing
489 Python on BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC
490 platform is supported for R3; both PowerPC and x86 are
491 supported for R4.
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000492
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000493Cray T3E: Mark Hadfield (m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz) writes:
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000494 Python can be built satisfactorily on a Cray T3E but based on
495 my experience with the NIWA T3E (2002-05-22, version 2.2.1)
496 there are a few bugs and gotchas. For more information see a
497 thread on comp.lang.python in May 2002 entitled "Building
498 Python on Cray T3E".
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000499
500 1) Use Cray's cc and not gcc. The latter was reported not to
501 work by Konrad Hinsen. It may work now, but it may not.
502
503 2) To set sys.platform to something sensible, pass the
504 following environment variable to the configure script:
505
506 MACHDEP=unicosmk
507
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000508 2) Run configure with option "--enable-unicode=ucs4".
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000509
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000510 3) The Cray T3E does not support dynamic linking, so extension
511 modules have to be built by adding (or uncommenting) lines
512 in Modules/Setup. The minimum set of modules is
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000513
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000514 posix, new, _sre, unicodedata
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000515
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000516 On NIWA's vanilla T3E system the following have also been
517 included successfully:
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000518
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000519 _codecs, _locale, _socket, _symtable, _testcapi, _weakref
520 array, binascii, cmath, cPickle, crypt, cStringIO, dbm
521 errno, fcntl, grp, math, md5, operator, parser, pcre, pwd
522 regex, rotor, select, struct, strop, syslog, termios
523 time, timing, xreadlines
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000524
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000525 4) Once the python executable and library have been built, make
526 will execute setup.py, which will attempt to build remaining
527 extensions and link them dynamically. Each of these attempts
528 will fail but should not halt the make process. This is
529 normal.
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000530
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000531 5) Running "make test" uses a lot of resources and causes
532 problems on our system. You might want to try running tests
533 singly or in small groups.
Guido van Rossum1bf0bf41997-08-20 23:50:51 +0000534
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000535SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make)
536 does not check whether a command actually changed the file it
537 is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make"
538 it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much
539 smarter "smake" utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If
540 you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake
541 smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make).
Guido van Rossum0078aaf1997-08-21 03:05:11 +0000542
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000543 WARNING: There are bugs in the optimizer of some versions of
544 SGI's compilers that can cause bus errors or other strange
545 behavior, especially on numerical operations. To avoid this,
546 try building with "make OPT=".
Fred Drake0b5fb2b2000-09-29 17:45:05 +0000547
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000548OS/2: If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++
549 compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory
550 and type NMAKE. Threading and sockets are supported by default
551 in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE.
552
Fred Drake36ed5602000-10-06 01:58:48 +0000553Monterey (64-bit AIX): The current Monterey C compiler (Visual Age)
554 uses the OBJECT_MODE={32|64} environment variable to set the
555 compilation mode to either 32-bit or 64-bit (32-bit mode is
556 the default). Presumably you want 64-bit compilation mode for
557 this 64-bit OS. As a result you must first set OBJECT_MODE=64
558 in your environment before configuring (./configure) or
559 building (make) Python on Monterey.
560
561Reliant UNIX: The thread support does not compile on Reliant UNIX, and
562 there is a (minor) problem in the configure script for that
563 platform as well. This should be resolved in time for a
564 future release.
Trent Mick635f6fb2000-08-23 21:33:05 +0000565
Barry Warsaw6a8557d2002-10-14 18:04:39 +0000566MacOSX: The tests will crash on both 10.1 and 10.2 with SEGV in
Barry Warsaw6e753642002-10-14 18:15:35 +0000567 test_re and test_sre due to the small default stack size. If
568 you set the stack size to 2048 before doing a "make test" the
Georg Brandl667eb7c2007-03-06 18:47:31 +0000569 failure can be avoided. If you're using the tcsh or csh shells,
570 use "limit stacksize 2048" and for the bash shell (the default
571 as of OSX 10.3), use "ulimit -s 2048".
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000572
Jack Jansen6a77cf12001-12-06 21:49:02 +0000573 On naked Darwin you may want to add the configure option
Jack Jansen4c398fd2001-10-08 13:21:15 +0000574 "--disable-toolbox-glue" to disable the glue code for the Carbon
Jack Jansen6a77cf12001-12-06 21:49:02 +0000575 interface modules. The modules themselves are currently only built
576 if you add the --enable-framework option, see below.
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000577
578 On a clean OSX /usr/local does not exist. Do a
Jack Jansen61fec302002-01-04 15:59:57 +0000579 "sudo mkdir -m 775 /usr/local"
Jack Jansen84a01642002-08-04 21:19:55 +0000580 before you do a make install. It is probably not a good idea to
581 do "sudo make install" which installs everything as superuser,
582 as this may later cause problems when installing distutils-based
583 additions.
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000584
Jack Jansen84a01642002-08-04 21:19:55 +0000585 Some people have reported problems building Python after using "fink"
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000586 to install additional unix software. Disabling fink (remove all
587 references to /sw from your .profile or .login) should solve this.
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000588
589 You may want to try the configure option "--enable-framework"
590 which installs Python as a framework. The location can be set
591 as argument to the --enable-framework option (default
Jack Jansen84a01642002-08-04 21:19:55 +0000592 /Library/Frameworks). A framework install is probably needed if you
593 want to use any Aqua-based GUI toolkit (whether Tkinter, wxPython,
594 Carbon, Cocoa or anything else).
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000595
Georg Brandlb0885b72007-12-09 08:59:45 +0000596 You may also want to try the configure option "--enable-universalsdk"
597 which builds Python as a universal binary with support for the
598 i386 and PPC architetures. This requires Xcode 2.1 or later to build.
Ronald Oussoren988117f2006-04-29 11:31:35 +0000599
Georg Brandl3fc792b2007-12-09 08:54:02 +0000600 See Mac/README for more information on framework and
Georg Brandlb0885b72007-12-09 08:59:45 +0000601 universal builds.
Fred Drakedabed752001-02-01 19:41:13 +0000602
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000603Cygwin: With recent (relative to the time of writing, 2001-12-19)
604 Cygwin installations, there are problems with the interaction
605 of dynamic linking and fork(). This manifests itself in build
606 failures during the execution of setup.py.
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000607
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000608 There are two workarounds that both enable Python (albeit
609 without threading support) to build and pass all tests on
610 NT/2000 (and most likely XP as well, though reports of testing
611 on XP would be appreciated).
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000612
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000613 The workarounds:
614
615 (a) the band-aid fix is to link the _socket module statically
616 rather than dynamically (which is the default).
617
618 To do this, run "./configure --with-threads=no" including any
619 other options you need (--prefix, etc.). Then in Modules/Setup
Walter Dörwald7dc65d62003-02-02 23:37:05 +0000620 uncomment the lines:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000621
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000622 #SSL=/usr/local/ssl
623 #_socket socketmodule.c \
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000624 # -DUSE_SSL -I$(SSL)/include -I$(SSL)/include/openssl \
625 # -L$(SSL)/lib -lssl -lcrypto
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000626
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000627 and remove "local/" from the SSL variable. Finally, just run
628 "make"!
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000629
Michael W. Hudsonb6554642001-12-19 22:09:09 +0000630 (b) The "proper" fix is to rebase the Cygwin DLLs to prevent
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000631 base address conflicts. Details on how to do this can be
632 found in the following mail:
633
634 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
635
636 It is hoped that a version of this solution will be
Michael W. Hudsonb6554642001-12-19 22:09:09 +0000637 incorporated into the Cygwin distribution fairly soon.
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000638
639 Two additional problems:
640
641 (1) Threading support should still be disabled due to a known
642 bug in Cygwin pthreads that causes test_threadedtempfile to
643 hang.
644
Neal Norwitz4ebde092001-12-19 20:44:13 +0000645 (2) The _curses module does not build. This is a known
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000646 Cygwin ncurses problem that should be resolved the next time
647 that this package is released.
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000648
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000649 On older versions of Cygwin, test_poll may hang and test_strftime
650 may fail.
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000651
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000652 The situation on 9X/Me is not accurately known at present.
653 Some time ago, there were reports that the following
654 regression tests failed:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000655
656 test_pwd
657 test_select (hang)
658 test_socket
659
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000660 Due to the test_select hang on 9X/Me, one should run the
661 regression test using the following:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000662
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000663 make TESTOPTS='-l -x test_select' test
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000664
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000665 News regarding these platforms with more recent Cygwin
666 versions would be appreciated!
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000667
Brett Cannon19fab762007-06-02 03:02:29 +0000668AtheOS: Official support has been stopped as of Python 2.6. All code will be
669 removed in Python 2.7 unless a maintainer steps forward for this
670 platform.
671
672 From Octavian Cerna <tavy at ylabs.com>:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000673
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000674 Before building:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000675
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000676 Make sure you have shared versions of the libraries you
677 want to use with Python. You will have to compile them
678 yourself, or download precompiled packages.
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000679
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000680 Recommended libraries:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000681
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000682 ncurses-4.2
683 readline-4.2a
684 zlib-1.1.4
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000685
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000686 Build:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000687
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000688 $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/python
689 $ make
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000690
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000691 Python is always built as a shared library, otherwise
692 dynamic loading would not work.
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000693
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000694 Testing:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000695
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000696 $ make test
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000697
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000698 Install:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000699
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000700 # make install
701 # pkgmanager -a /usr/python
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000702
703
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000704 AtheOS issues:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000705
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000706 - large file support: due to a stdio bug in glibc/libio,
707 access to large files may not work correctly. fseeko()
708 tries to seek to a negative offset. ftello() returns a
709 negative offset, it looks like a 32->64bit
710 sign-extension issue. The lowlevel functions (open,
711 lseek, etc) are OK.
712 - sockets: AF_UNIX is defined in the C library and in
713 Python, but not implemented in the system.
714 - select: poll is available in the C library, but does not
715 work (It does not return POLLNVAL for bad fds and
716 hangs).
717 - posix: statvfs and fstatvfs always return ENOSYS.
718 - disabled modules:
719 - mmap: not yet implemented in AtheOS
720 - nis: broken (on an unconfigured system
721 yp_get_default_domain() returns junk instead of
722 error)
723 - dl: dynamic loading doesn't work via dlopen()
724 - resource: getrimit and setrlimit are not yet
725 implemented
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000726
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000727 - if you are getting segmentation faults, you probably are
728 low on memory. AtheOS doesn't handle very well an
729 out-of-memory condition and simply SEGVs the process.
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000730
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000731 Tested on:
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000732
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000733 AtheOS-0.3.7
734 gcc-2.95
735 binutils-2.10
736 make-3.78
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000737
738
Skip Montanaro57454e52002-06-14 20:30:31 +0000739Configuring the bsddb and dbm modules
740-------------------------------------
741
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000742Beginning with Python version 2.3, the PyBsddb package
743<http://pybsddb.sf.net/> was adopted into Python as the bsddb package,
744exposing a set of package-level functions which provide
Gregory P. Smith3adc4aa2006-04-13 19:19:01 +0000745backwards-compatible behavior. Only versions 3.3 through 4.4 of
Skip Montanaro56d83012003-01-04 04:05:51 +0000746Sleepycat's libraries provide the necessary API, so older versions
747aren't supported through this interface. The old bsddb module has
748been retained as bsddb185, though it is not built by default. Users
749wishing to use it will have to tweak Modules/Setup to build it. The
750dbm module will still be built against the Sleepycat libraries if
Gregory P. Smith3adc4aa2006-04-13 19:19:01 +0000751other preferred alternatives (ndbm, gdbm) are not found.
Guido van Rossum62d45c02002-12-02 15:49:13 +0000752
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000753Building the sqlite3 module
754---------------------------
755
756To build the sqlite3 module, you'll need the sqlite3 or libsqlite3
757packages installed, including the header files. Many modern operating
758systems distribute the headers in a separate package to the library -
759often it will be the same name as the main package, but with a -dev or
760-devel suffix.
761
762The version of pysqlite2 that's including in Python needs sqlite3 3.0.8
763or later. setup.py attempts to check that it can find a correct version.
Skip Montanaro57454e52002-06-14 20:30:31 +0000764
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000765Configuring threads
766-------------------
767
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000768As of Python 2.0, threads are enabled by default. If you wish to
769compile without threads, or if your thread support is broken, pass the
770--with-threads=no switch to configure. Unfortunately, on some
771platforms, additional compiler and/or linker options are required for
772threads to work properly. Below is a table of those options,
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000773collected by Bill Janssen. We would love to automate this process
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000774more, but the information below is not enough to write a patch for the
775configure.in file, so manual intervention is required. If you patch
776the configure.in file and are confident that the patch works, please
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000777send in the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure script itself
Walter Dörwald7dc65d62003-02-02 23:37:05 +0000778-- it is regenerated each time the configure.in file changes.)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000779
780Compiler switches for threads
781.............................
782
Martin v. Löwis1c24f9c2001-03-06 12:07:27 +0000783The definition of _REENTRANT should be configured automatically, if
784that does not work on your system, or if _REENTRANT is defined
785incorrectly, please report that as a bug.
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000786
Martin v. Löwis1c24f9c2001-03-06 12:07:27 +0000787 OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads
788 (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) compile & link
789
790 SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris -mt
791 SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (nothing)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000792 DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE -threads
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000793 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000794 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE -threads
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000795 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000796 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX -pthread
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000797 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000798 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000799 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000800 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000801 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000802 IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000803 (robertl@cwi.nl)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000804
805
806Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads
807...........................................
808
809 OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads
810
811 SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread
812 SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000813 DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000814 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000815 Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000816 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000817 Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000818 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000819 AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000820 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000821 IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000822 (jph@emilia.engr.sgi.com)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000823
824
Martin v. Löwis1142de32002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000825Building a shared libpython
826---------------------------
827
828Starting with Python 2.3, the majority of the interpreter can be built
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000829into a shared library, which can then be used by the interpreter
Martin v. Löwis1142de32002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000830executable, and by applications embedding Python. To enable this feature,
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +0000831configure with --enable-shared.
Martin v. Löwis65069672002-08-03 21:38:27 +0000832
Fred Drake55512dc2003-07-21 16:01:39 +0000833If you enable this feature, the same object files will be used to create
834a static library. In particular, the static library will contain object
835files using position-independent code (PIC) on platforms where PIC flags
836are needed for the shared library.
Martin v. Löwis1142de32002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000837
838
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000839Configuring additional built-in modules
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000840---------------------------------------
Guido van Rossum19e0c261995-01-17 16:36:34 +0000841
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000842Starting with Python 2.1, the setup.py script at the top of the source
843distribution attempts to detect which modules can be built and
844automatically compiles them. Autodetection doesn't always work, so
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000845you can still customize the configuration by editing the Modules/Setup
846file; but this should be considered a last resort. The rest of this
847section only applies if you decide to edit the Modules/Setup file.
848You also need this to enable static linking of certain modules (which
849is needed to enable profiling on some systems).
850
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000851This file is initially copied from Setup.dist by the configure script;
852if it does not exist yet, create it by copying Modules/Setup.dist
853yourself (configure will never overwrite it). Never edit Setup.dist
854-- always edit Setup or Setup.local (see below). Read the comments in
855the file for information on what kind of edits are allowed. When you
856have edited Setup in the Modules directory, the interpreter will
Guido van Rossumef67ded2001-10-05 17:04:42 +0000857automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make (in the toplevel
858directory).
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000859
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000860Many useful modules can be built on any Unix system, but some optional
861modules can't be reliably autodetected. Often the quickest way to
862determine whether a particular module works or not is to see if it
863will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get compilation or link
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000864errors, disable it -- you're either missing support or need to adjust
865the compilation and linking parameters for that module.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000866
867On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000868system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware. These
869modules will not be built by the setup.py script.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000870
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000871In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local.
872(the makesetup script processes both). You may find it more
873convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone. Then, when
874installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local
875file.
876
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000877
878Setting the optimization/debugging options
879------------------------------------------
880
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000881If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for
882the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make
883command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python
884on most platforms. The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the
885environment when the configure script is run overrides this default
886(likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base
887set of libraries to link with).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000888
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000889When compiling with GCC, the default value of OPT will also include
890the -Wall and -Wstrict-prototypes options.
891
892Additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems can
893be enabled by using the --with-pydebug option to the configure script.
894
Brett Cannon08cd5982005-04-24 22:26:38 +0000895For flags that change binary compatibility, use the EXTRA_CFLAGS
896variable.
897
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000898
Guido van Rossuma68ca352001-10-04 17:00:07 +0000899Profiling
900---------
901
902If you want C profiling turned on, the easiest way is to run configure
903with the CC environment variable to the necessary compiler
904invocation. For example, on Linux, this works for profiling using
905gprof(1):
906
907 CC="gcc -pg" ./configure
908
909Note that on Linux, gprof apparently does not work for shared
910libraries. The Makefile/Setup mechanism can be used to compile and
Walter Dörwald7dc65d62003-02-02 23:37:05 +0000911link most extension modules statically.
Guido van Rossuma68ca352001-10-04 17:00:07 +0000912
913
Georg Brandl405b5f32008-05-18 11:46:51 +0000914Coverage checking
915-----------------
916
917For C coverage checking using gcov, run "make coverage". This will
918build a Python binary with profiling activated, and a ".gcno" and
919".gcda" file for every source file compiled with that option. With
920the built binary, now run the code whose coverage you want to check.
921Then, you can see coverage statistics for each individual source file
922by running gcov, e.g.
923
924 gcov -o Modules zlibmodule
925
926This will create a "zlibmodule.c.gcov" file in the current directory
927containing coverage info for that source file.
928
929This works only for source files statically compiled into the
930executable; use the Makefile/Setup mechanism to compile and link
931extension modules you want to coverage-check statically.
932
933
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000934Testing
935-------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000936
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000937To test the interpreter, type "make test" in the top-level directory.
Guido van Rossum6ae5d3d1997-05-14 21:39:05 +0000938This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with
939the compiled files left by the previous test run). The test set
940produces some output. You can generally ignore the messages about
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000941skipped tests due to optional features which can't be imported.
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000942If a message is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core
943dump is produced, something is wrong. On some Linux systems (those
Guido van Rossum24df6841997-12-30 04:32:30 +0000944that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000945non-standard implementation of strftime() in the C library. Please
946ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000947
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000948IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report,
949*don't* include the output of "make test". It is useless. Run the
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000950failing test manually, as follows:
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000951
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000952 ./python ./Lib/test/test_whatever.py
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000953
Andrew M. Kuchling83d042d2002-03-21 23:52:20 +0000954(substituting the top of the source tree for '.' if you built in a
Guido van Rossum6ae5d3d1997-05-14 21:39:05 +0000955different directory). This runs the test in verbose mode.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000956
957
958Installing
959----------
960
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000961To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules
962(see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page,
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000963just type
964
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +0000965 make install
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000966
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000967This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories of
968the directory given with the --prefix option to configure or to the
969`prefix' Make variable (default /usr/local). All binary and other
970platform-specific files will be installed in subdirectories if the
971directory given by --exec-prefix or the `exec_prefix' Make variable
972(defaults to the --prefix directory) is given.
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000973
Martin v. Löwis3b8ee082003-05-11 20:25:35 +0000974If DESTDIR is set, it will be taken as the root directory of the
975installation, and files will be installed into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix),
976$(DESTDIR)$(exec_prefix), etc.
977
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000978All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their
979name, e.g. the library modules are installed in
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000980"/usr/local/lib/python<version>/" by default, where <version> is the
981<major>.<minor> release number (e.g. "2.1"). The Python binary is
982installed as "python<version>" and a hard link named "python" is
983created. The only file not installed with a version number in its
984name is the manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1"
985by default.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000986
Skip Montanaro86d4e7a2008-03-05 16:41:09 +0000987If you want to install multiple versions of Python see the section below
988entitled "Installing multiple versions".
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000989
990The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000991Emacs found in Misc/python-mode.el. (But then again, more recent
992versions of Emacs may already have it.) Follow the instructions that
993came with Emacs for installation of site-specific files.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000994
Jack Jansena39ef862001-08-19 21:17:03 +0000995On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework, you
996should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation. Note that this
997installs the Python executable in a place that is not normally on your
998PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in /usr/local/bin.
999
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001000
Skip Montanaro86d4e7a2008-03-05 16:41:09 +00001001Installing multiple versions
1002----------------------------
1003
1004On Unix and Mac systems if you intend to install multiple versions of Python
1005using the same installation prefix (--prefix argument to the configure
1006script) you must take care that your primary python executable is not
1007overwritten by the installation of a different versio. All files and
1008directories installed using "make altinstall" contain the major and minor
1009version and can thus live side-by-side. "make install" also creates
1010${prefix}/bin/python which refers to ${prefix}/bin/pythonX.Y. If you intend
1011to install multiple versions using the same prefix you must decide which
1012version (if any) is your "primary" version. Install that version using
1013"make install". Install all other versions using "make altinstall".
1014
1015For example, if you want to install Python 2.5, 2.6 and 3.0 with 2.6 being
1016the primary version, you would execute "make install" in your 2.6 build
1017directory and "make altinstall" in the others.
1018
1019
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001020Configuration options and variables
1021-----------------------------------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001022
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001023Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure
1024script.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001025
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001026WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you
1027must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule:
1028after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove
Guido van Rossumb06df271997-08-05 21:50:20 +00001029Modules/getpath.o.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001030
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001031--with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001032 it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is
1033 installed but broken on your platform, pass the option
1034 --without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the
1035 name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the
1036 advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is
1037 remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck
1038 option.
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +00001039
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001040--prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001041 Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib},
1042 you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter
1043 binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the
1044 library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass
1045 --exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the
1046 installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the
1047 interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also
1048 affects the default module search path (sys.path), when
1049 Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option
1050 prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the
1051 prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient
1052 than re-running the configure script if you change your mind
1053 about the install prefix.
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +00001054
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001055--with-readline: This option is no longer supported. GNU
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001056 readline is automatically enabled by setup.py when present.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001057
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +00001058--with-threads: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001059 threads, and support for this is enabled by default. To
1060 disable this, pass --with-threads=no. If the library required
1061 for threads lives in a peculiar place, you can use
1062 --with-thread=DIRECTORY. IMPORTANT: run "make clean" after
1063 changing (either enabling or disabling) this option, or you
1064 will get link errors! Note: for DEC Unix use
1065 --with-dec-threads instead.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001066
1067--with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001068 supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is
1069 ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z.
1070 This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl
1071 library) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY
1072 is the absolute pathname of the dl library. (Don't bother on
1073 IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style
1074 shared libraries.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001075
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001076--with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumored to be supported
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001077 on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent
1078 Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST. This is done using a
1079 combination of the GNU dynamic loading package
1080 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an
1081 emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation
1082 can be found at
1083 ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z). To
1084 enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call
1085 configure, passing it the option
1086 --with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is
1087 the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and
1088 DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library.
1089 (Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic
1090 linking using shared libraries.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001091
1092--with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001093 versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library
1094 (default the empty string) using the options
1095 --with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. For
1096 example, if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C
1097 compiler to use the shared C library, you can pass
1098 --with-libc=-lc_s. These libraries are passed after all other
1099 libraries, the C library last.
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +00001100
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001101--with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python interpreter
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001102 is linked against.
Guido van Rossumd02ba451996-07-31 17:36:01 +00001103
Martin v. Löwis0f48d982006-04-14 14:34:26 +00001104--with-cxx-main=<compiler>: If you plan to use C++ extension modules,
1105 then -- on some platforms -- you need to compile python's main()
1106 function with the C++ compiler. With this option, make will use
1107 <compiler> to compile main() *and* to link the python executable.
1108 It is likely that the resulting executable depends on the C++
1109 runtime library of <compiler>. (The default is --without-cxx-main.)
1110
1111 There are platforms that do not require you to build Python
1112 with a C++ compiler in order to use C++ extension modules.
1113 E.g., x86 Linux with ELF shared binaries and GCC 3.x, 4.x is such
1114 a platform. We recommend that you configure Python
1115 --without-cxx-main on those platforms because a mismatch
1116 between the C++ compiler version used to build Python and to
1117 build a C++ extension module is likely to cause a crash at
1118 runtime.
1119
1120 The Python installation also stores the variable CXX that
1121 determines, e.g., the C++ compiler distutils calls by default
1122 to build C++ extensions. If you set CXX on the configure command
1123 line to any string of non-zero length, then configure won't
1124 change CXX. If you do not preset CXX but pass
1125 --with-cxx-main=<compiler>, then configure sets CXX=<compiler>.
1126 In all other cases, configure looks for a C++ compiler by
1127 some common names (c++, g++, gcc, CC, cxx, cc++, cl) and sets
1128 CXX to the first compiler it finds. If it does not find any
1129 C++ compiler, then it sets CXX="".
1130
1131 Similarly, if you want to change the command used to link the
1132 python executable, then set LINKCC on the configure command line.
Martin v. Löwis2df66942000-12-13 14:14:32 +00001133
1134
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +00001135--with-pydebug: Enable additional debugging code to help track down
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001136 memory management problems. This allows printing a list of all
1137 live objects when the interpreter terminates.
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +00001138
Jack Jansen7b8c7542002-04-14 20:12:41 +00001139--with(out)-universal-newlines: enable reading of text files with
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001140 foreign newline convention (default: enabled). In other words,
1141 any of \r, \n or \r\n is acceptable as end-of-line character.
1142 If enabled import and execfile will automatically accept any newline
1143 in files. Python code can open a file with open(file, 'U') to
1144 read it in universal newline mode. THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED.
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +00001145
Martin v. Löwisf30d60e2004-06-08 08:17:44 +00001146--with-tsc: Profile using the Pentium timestamping counter (TSC).
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +00001147
Martin v. Löwis9176fc12006-04-11 11:12:43 +00001148--with-system-ffi: Build the _ctypes extension module using an ffi
Georg Brandlb0885b72007-12-09 08:59:45 +00001149 library installed on the system.
Martin v. Löwis9176fc12006-04-11 11:12:43 +00001150
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +00001151
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001152Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature)
1153-------------------------------------------------------------
1154
1155If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it
1156usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each
1157architecture you want to support. If the make program supports the
1158VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each
1159architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the
1160appropriate machine with the appropriate options). This creates the
1161necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein. The Makefiles
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001162contain a line VPATH=... which points to a directory containing the
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +00001163actual sources. (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if
1164you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.)
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001165
1166For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python
1167in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel
1168directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python):
1169
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001170 $ mkdir /usr/tmp/python
1171 $ cd /usr/tmp/python
1172 $ ~guido/src/python/configure
1173 [...]
1174 $ make
1175 [...]
1176 $
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001177
Neil Schemenauer73f8ab22001-01-26 22:18:55 +00001178Note that configure copies the original Setup file to the build
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001179directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can
1180edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this
1181reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked
1182automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy
1183of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The
1184makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be
1185fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it
1186doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local;
1187however this assumes that you only need to add modules.)
1188
Christian Heimes0a0e5832007-12-13 19:23:16 +00001189Also note that you can't use a workspace for VPATH and non VPATH builds. The
1190object files left behind by one version confuses the other.
1191
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001192
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001193Building on non-UNIX systems
1194----------------------------
1195
Martin v. Löwis2eba0d62004-12-24 08:28:28 +00001196For Windows (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 7.1, the
Tim Peters03444242000-09-19 00:38:35 +00001197project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw. See
1198PCbuild\readme.txt for detailed instructions.
Guido van Rossum8d7d4ed1996-07-30 21:41:07 +00001199
Martin v. Löwis2eba0d62004-12-24 08:28:28 +00001200For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular MS VC++ 6.0 and
Guido van Rossum31ae2071999-04-12 14:47:30 +00001201for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt".
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001202
1203For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available,
1204for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac
1205development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group
1206(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to
1207pythonmac-sig-request@python.org).
1208
1209Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001210platforms -- see http://www.python.org/.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001211
1212To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the
1213effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this
1214has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001215pyconfig.h.in to pyconfig.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001216configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as
12171 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001218otherwise; however the *_t type symbols must be defined as some
1219variant of int if they need to be defined at all.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001220
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +00001221For all platforms, it's important that the build arrange to define the
1222preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the compiler command line in a release
1223build of Python (else assert() calls remain in the code, hurting
1224release-build performance). The Unix, Windows and Mac builds already
1225do this.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001226
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001227
1228Miscellaneous issues
1229====================
1230
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001231Emacs mode
1232----------
1233
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001234There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file
1235Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001236is now maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw (it's no
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001237coincidence that they now both work on the same team). The latest
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001238version, along with various other contributed Python-related Emacs
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001239goodies, is online at http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode. And
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001240if you are planning to edit the Python C code, please pick up the
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001241latest version of CC Mode http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode; it
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001242contains a "python" style used throughout most of the Python C source
1243files. (Newer versions of Emacs or XEmacs may already come with the
1244latest version of python-mode.)
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001245
1246
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001247Tkinter
1248-------
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001249
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001250The setup.py script automatically configures this when it detects a
1251usable Tcl/Tk installation. This requires Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or
Fred Drake8179a9d2000-09-28 23:28:30 +00001252higher.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001253
Guido van Rossum973e4dc2000-07-01 00:34:39 +00001254For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page:
1255http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001256
Michael W. Hudson71dcc3e2005-02-22 15:33:26 +00001257There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001258
1259Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001260lives in Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter"
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001261(lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001262Modules/_tkinter.c. Demos and normal Tk applications import only the
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001263Python Tkinter module -- only the latter imports the C _tkinter
1264module. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled
1265and linked into the Python interpreter -- the setup.py script does
1266this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module, sys.path must be
1267set correctly -- normal installation takes care of this.
Guido van Rossum84c8c7f1995-08-28 02:44:24 +00001268
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001269
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001270Distribution structure
1271----------------------
1272
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001273Most subdirectories have their own README files. Most files have
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001274comments.
1275
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001276Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs
Georg Brandlc207c712008-02-09 21:38:54 +00001277Doc/ Documentation sources (reStructuredText)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001278Grammar/ Input for the parser generator
1279Include/ Public header files
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001280LICENSE Licensing information
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001281Lib/ Python library modules
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001282Mac/ Macintosh specific resources
Neil Schemenauer3f52da52001-01-24 17:49:59 +00001283Makefile.pre.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile.pre
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001284Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001285Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules
1286Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001287PC/ Files specific to PC ports (DOS, Windows, OS/2)
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001288PCbuild/ Build directory for Microsoft Visual C++
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001289Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001290Python/ The byte-compiler and interpreter
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001291README The file you're reading now
Neal Norwitzf8519c42007-05-20 18:43:00 +00001292RISCOS/ Files specific to RISC OS port
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001293Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001294pyconfig.h.in Source from which pyconfig.h is created (GNU autoheader output)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001295configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output)
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001296configure.in Configuration specification (input for GNU autoconf)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001297install-sh Shell script used to install files
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001298setup.py Python script used to build extension modules
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001299
1300The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by
1301the configuration and build processes:
1302
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001303Makefile Build rules
Neil Schemenauer3f52da52001-01-24 17:49:59 +00001304Makefile.pre Build rules before running Modules/makesetup
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001305buildno Keeps track of the build number
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001306config.cache Cache of configuration variables
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001307pyconfig.h Configuration header
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001308config.log Log from last configure run
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001309config.status Status from last run of the configure script
Anthony Baxter70e07962006-04-03 14:16:27 +00001310getbuildinfo.o Object file from Modules/getbuildinfo.c
1311libpython<version>.a The library archive
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001312python The executable interpreter
Neal Norwitzf8519c42007-05-20 18:43:00 +00001313reflog.txt Output from running the regression suite with the -R flag
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001314tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001315
1316
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001317That's all, folks!
1318------------------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001319
1320
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001321--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)