Quick Start Guide | |
----------------- | |
1. Install Microsoft Visual Studio 2015, any edition. | |
2. Install Subversion, and make sure 'svn.exe' is on your PATH. | |
3. Run "build.bat -e" to build Python in 32-bit Release configuration. | |
4. (Optional, but recommended) Run the test suite with "rt.bat -q". | |
Building Python using Microsoft Visual C++ | |
------------------------------------------ | |
This directory is used to build CPython for Microsoft Windows NT version | |
6.0 or higher (Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, or later) on 32 and 64 | |
bit platforms. Using this directory requires an installation of | |
Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 (MSVC 14.0) of any edition. The specific | |
requirements are as follows: | |
Visual Studio Express 2015 for Desktop | |
Visual Studio Professional 2015 | |
Either edition is sufficient for building all configurations except | |
for Profile Guided Optimization. | |
The Python build solution pcbuild.sln makes use of Solution Folders, | |
which this edition does not support. Any time pcbuild.sln is opened | |
or reloaded by Visual Studio, a warning about Solution Folders will | |
be displayed, which can be safely dismissed with no impact on your | |
ability to build Python. | |
Required for building 64-bit Debug and Release configuration builds | |
Visual Studio Premium 2015 | |
Required for building Release configuration builds that make use of | |
Profile Guided Optimization (PGO), on either platform. | |
All you need to do to build is open the solution "pcbuild.sln" in Visual | |
Studio, select the desired combination of configuration and platform, | |
then build with "Build Solution". You can also build from the command | |
line using the "build.bat" script in this directory; see below for | |
details. The solution is configured to build the projects in the correct | |
order. | |
The solution currently supports two platforms. The Win32 platform is | |
used to build standard x86-compatible 32-bit binaries, output into the | |
win32 sub-directory. The x64 platform is used for building 64-bit AMD64 | |
(aka x86_64 or EM64T) binaries, output into the amd64 sub-directory. | |
The Itanium (IA-64) platform is no longer supported. See the "Building | |
for AMD64" section below for more information about 64-bit builds. | |
Four configuration options are supported by the solution: | |
Debug | |
Used to build Python with extra debugging capabilities, equivalent | |
to using ./configure --with-pydebug on UNIX. All binaries built | |
using this configuration have "_d" added to their name: | |
python35_d.dll, python_d.exe, parser_d.pyd, and so on. Both the | |
build and rt (run test) batch files in this directory accept a -d | |
option for debug builds. If you are building Python to help with | |
development of CPython, you will most likely use this configuration. | |
PGInstrument, PGUpdate | |
Used to build Python in Release configuration using PGO, which | |
requires Premium Edition of Visual Studio. See the "Profile | |
Guided Optimization" section below for more information. Build | |
output from each of these configurations lands in its own | |
sub-directory of this directory. The official Python releases may | |
be built using these configurations. | |
Release | |
Used to build Python as it is meant to be used in production | |
settings, though without PGO. | |
Building Python using the build.bat script | |
---------------------------------------------- | |
In this directory you can find build.bat, a script designed to make | |
building Python on Windows simpler. This script will use the env.bat | |
script to detect one of Visual Studio 2015, 2013, 2012, or 2010, any of | |
which may be used to build Python, though only Visual Studio 2015 is | |
officially supported. | |
By default, build.bat will build Python in Release configuration for | |
the 32-bit Win32 platform. It accepts several arguments to change | |
this behavior: | |
-c <configuration> Set the configuration (see above) | |
-d Shortcut for "-c Debug" | |
-p <platform> Set the platform to build for ("Win32" or "x64") | |
-r Rebuild instead of just building | |
-t <target> Set the target (Build, Rebuild, Clean or CleanAll) | |
-e Use get_externals.bat to fetch external sources | |
-M Don't build in parallel | |
-v Increased output messages | |
Up to 9 MSBuild switches can also be passed, though they must be passed | |
after specifying any of the above switches. For example, use: | |
build.bat -e -d /fl | |
to do a debug build with externals fetched as needed and write detailed | |
build logs to a file. If the MSBuild switch requires an equal sign | |
("="), the entire switch must be quoted: | |
build.bat -e -d "/p:ExternalsDir=P:\cpython-externals" | |
There may also be other situations where quotes are necessary. | |
C Runtime | |
--------- | |
Visual Studio 2015 uses version 14 of the C runtime (MSVCRT14). The | |
executables no longer use the "Side by Side" assemblies used in previous | |
versions of the compiler. This simplifies distribution of applications. | |
The run time libraries are available under the VC/Redist folder of your | |
Visual Studio distribution. For more info, see the Readme in the | |
VC/Redist folder. | |
Sub-Projects | |
------------ | |
The CPython project is split up into several smaller sub-projects which | |
are managed by the pcbuild.sln solution file. Each sub-project is | |
represented by a .vcxproj and a .vcxproj.filters file starting with the | |
name of the sub-project. These sub-projects fall into a few general | |
categories: | |
The following sub-projects represent the bare minimum required to build | |
a functioning CPython interpreter. If nothing else builds but these, | |
you'll have a very limited but usable python.exe: | |
pythoncore | |
.dll and .lib | |
python | |
.exe | |
make_buildinfo, make_versioninfo | |
helpers to provide necessary information to the build process | |
These sub-projects provide extra executables that are useful for running | |
CPython in different ways: | |
pythonw | |
pythonw.exe, a variant of python.exe that doesn't open a Command | |
Prompt window | |
pylauncher | |
py.exe, the Python Launcher for Windows, see | |
http://docs.python.org/3/using/windows.html#launcher | |
pywlauncher | |
pyw.exe, a variant of py.exe that doesn't open a Command Prompt | |
window | |
_testembed | |
_testembed.exe, a small program that embeds Python for testing | |
purposes, used by test_capi.py | |
These are miscellaneous sub-projects that don't really fit the other | |
categories: | |
_freeze_importlib | |
_freeze_importlib.exe, used to regenerate Python\importlib.h after | |
changes have been made to Lib\importlib\_bootstrap.py | |
bdist_wininst | |
..\Lib\distutils\command\wininst-14.0[-amd64].exe, the base | |
executable used by the distutils bdist_wininst command | |
python3dll | |
python3.dll, the PEP 384 Stable ABI dll | |
xxlimited | |
builds an example module that makes use of the PEP 384 Stable ABI, | |
see Modules\xxlimited.c | |
The following sub-projects are for individual modules of the standard | |
library which are implemented in C; each one builds a DLL (renamed to | |
.pyd) of the same name as the project: | |
_ctypes | |
_ctypes_test | |
_decimal | |
_elementtree | |
_hashlib | |
_msi | |
_multiprocessing | |
_overlapped | |
_socket | |
_testcapi | |
_testbuffer | |
_testimportmultiple | |
pyexpat | |
select | |
unicodedata | |
winsound | |
The following Python-controlled sub-projects wrap external projects. | |
Note that these external libraries are not necessary for a working | |
interpreter, but they do implement several major features. See the | |
"Getting External Sources" section below for additional information | |
about getting the source for building these libraries. The sub-projects | |
are: | |
_bz2 | |
Python wrapper for version 1.0.6 of the libbzip2 compression library | |
Homepage: | |
http://www.bzip.org/ | |
_lzma | |
Python wrapper for the liblzma compression library, using pre-built | |
binaries of XZ Utils version 5.0.5 | |
Homepage: | |
http://tukaani.org/xz/ | |
_ssl | |
Python wrapper for version 1.0.2d of the OpenSSL secure sockets | |
library, which is built by ssl.vcxproj | |
Homepage: | |
http://www.openssl.org/ | |
Building OpenSSL requires nasm.exe (the Netwide Assembler), version | |
2.10 or newer from | |
http://www.nasm.us/ | |
to be somewhere on your PATH. More recent versions of OpenSSL may | |
need a later version of NASM. If OpenSSL's self tests don't pass, | |
you should first try to update NASM and do a full rebuild of | |
OpenSSL. If you use the PCbuild\get_externals.bat method | |
for getting sources, it also downloads a version of NASM which the | |
libeay/ssleay sub-projects use. | |
The libeay/ssleay sub-projects expect your OpenSSL sources to have | |
already been configured and be ready to build. If you get your sources | |
from svn.python.org as suggested in the "Getting External Sources" | |
section below, the OpenSSL source will already be ready to go. If | |
you want to build a different version, you will need to run | |
PCbuild\prepare_ssl.py path\to\openssl-source-dir | |
That script will prepare your OpenSSL sources in the same way that | |
those available on svn.python.org have been prepared. Note that | |
Perl must be installed and available on your PATH to configure | |
OpenSSL. ActivePerl is recommended and is available from | |
http://www.activestate.com/activeperl/ | |
The libeay and ssleay sub-projects will build the modules of OpenSSL | |
required by _ssl and _hashlib and may need to be manually updated when | |
upgrading to a newer version of OpenSSL or when adding new | |
functionality to _ssl or _hashlib. They will not clean up their output | |
with the normal Clean target; CleanAll should be used instead. | |
_sqlite3 | |
Wraps SQLite 3.8.11.0, which is itself built by sqlite3.vcxproj | |
Homepage: | |
http://www.sqlite.org/ | |
_tkinter | |
Wraps version 8.6.4 of the Tk windowing system. | |
Homepage: | |
http://www.tcl.tk/ | |
Tkinter's dependencies are built by the tcl.vcxproj and tk.vcxproj | |
projects. The tix.vcxproj project also builds the Tix extended | |
widget set for use with Tkinter. | |
Those three projects install their respective components in a | |
directory alongside the source directories called "tcltk" on | |
Win32 and "tcltk64" on x64. They also copy the Tcl and Tk DLLs | |
into the current output directory, which should ensure that Tkinter | |
is able to load Tcl/Tk without having to change your PATH. | |
The tcl, tk, and tix sub-projects do not clean their builds with | |
the normal Clean target; if you need to rebuild, you should use the | |
CleanAll target or manually delete their builds. | |
Getting External Sources | |
------------------------ | |
The last category of sub-projects listed above wrap external projects | |
Python doesn't control, and as such a little more work is required in | |
order to download the relevant source files for each project before they | |
can be built. However, a simple script is provided to make this as | |
painless as possible, called "get_externals.bat" and located in this | |
directory. This script extracts all the external sub-projects from | |
http://svn.python.org/projects/external | |
via Subversion (so you'll need svn.exe on your PATH) and places them | |
in ..\externals (relative to this directory). | |
It is also possible to download sources from each project's homepage, | |
though you may have to change folder names or pass the names to MSBuild | |
as the values of certain properties in order for the build solution to | |
find them. This is an advanced topic and not necessarily fully | |
supported. | |
Building for AMD64 | |
------------------ | |
The build process for AMD64 / x64 is very similar to standard builds, | |
you just have to set x64 as platform. In addition, the HOST_PYTHON | |
environment variable must point to a Python interpreter (at least 2.4), | |
to support cross-compilation from Win32. | |
Profile Guided Optimization | |
--------------------------- | |
The solution has two configurations for PGO. The PGInstrument | |
configuration must be built first. The PGInstrument binaries are linked | |
against a profiling library and contain extra debug information. The | |
PGUpdate configuration takes the profiling data and generates optimized | |
binaries. | |
The build_pgo.bat script automates the creation of optimized binaries. | |
It creates the PGI files, runs the unit test suite or PyBench with the | |
PGI python, and finally creates the optimized files. | |
See | |
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/e7k32f4k(VS.100).aspx | |
for more on this topic. | |
Static library | |
-------------- | |
The solution has no configuration for static libraries. However it is | |
easy to build a static library instead of a DLL. You simply have to set | |
the "Configuration Type" to "Static Library (.lib)" and alter the | |
preprocessor macro "Py_ENABLE_SHARED" to "Py_NO_ENABLE_SHARED". You may | |
also have to change the "Runtime Library" from "Multi-threaded DLL | |
(/MD)" to "Multi-threaded (/MT)". | |
Visual Studio properties | |
------------------------ | |
The PCbuild solution makes use of Visual Studio property files (*.props) | |
to simplify each project. The properties can be viewed in the Property | |
Manager (View -> Other Windows -> Property Manager) but should be | |
carefully modified by hand. | |
The property files used are: | |
* python (versions, directories and build names) | |
* pyproject (base settings for all projects) | |
* openssl (used by libeay and ssleay projects) | |
* tcltk (used by _tkinter, tcl, tk and tix projects) | |
The pyproject property file defines all of the build settings for each | |
project, with some projects overriding certain specific values. The GUI | |
doesn't always reflect the correct settings and may confuse the user | |
with false information, especially for settings that automatically adapt | |
for diffirent configurations. | |
Your Own Extension DLLs | |
----------------------- | |
If you want to create your own extension module DLL (.pyd), there's an | |
example with easy-to-follow instructions in ..\PC\example\; read the | |
file readme.txt there first. |