| This is Python version 1.5.2 -- released April 13, 1999 |
| ======================================================= |
| |
| |
| What's new in this release? |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| See the Misc/NEWS file. |
| |
| |
| If you don't read instructions |
| ------------------------------ |
| |
| Congratulations on getting this far. :-) |
| |
| To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the |
| current directory and when it finishes, type "make". The section |
| Build Instructions below is still recommended reading. :-) |
| |
| |
| What is Python anyway? |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| Python is an interpreted object-oriented programming language, and is |
| often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java or Scheme. To find out more, point |
| your browser to http://www.python.org/. |
| |
| |
| A modest plug |
| ------------- |
| |
| ************************************************************************ |
| * Without your support, I won't be able to continue to work on Python! * |
| ************************************************************************ |
| |
| If you use Python, please consider joining the Python Software |
| Activity (PSA). See http://www.python.org/psa/. |
| |
| Organizations that make heavy use of Python are especially encouraged |
| to become corporate members -- or better still, to join the Python |
| Consortium (see http://www.python.org/consortium/). |
| |
| |
| How do I learn Python? |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see |
| http://www.python.org/doc/ for online and downloadable versions. |
| Aaron Watters wrote a second tutorial, that may be more accessible for |
| some: http://www.networkcomputing.com/unixworld/tutorial/005/005.html. |
| Both tutorials (as well as most other sources) assume that you already |
| know how to program -- if you'd like to write "Python for Dummies", I |
| know a publisher who would like to talk to you... |
| |
| There are now also several books on Python. The first book is the |
| most recent and covers Python 1.5.X. The other two books, both |
| first published in October 1996 and both including a CD-ROM, form |
| excellent companions to each other. Though these two are still based |
| on Python 1.3 or 1.4, the information in them is still 99% correct. |
| |
| Learning Python |
| by Mark Lutz and David Ascher |
| O'Reilly & Associates |
| ISBN: 1-56592-464-9 |
| |
| Internet Programming with Python |
| by Aaron Watters, Guido van Rossum, and James Ahlstrom |
| MIS Press/Henry Holt publishers |
| ISBN: 1-55851-484-8 |
| |
| Programming Python |
| by Mark Lutz |
| O'Reilly & Associates |
| ISBN: 1-56592-197-6 |
| |
| If you can read German, try: |
| |
| Das Python-Buch |
| by Martin von Loewis and Nils Fischbeck |
| Addison-Wesley-Longman, 1997 |
| ISBN: 3-8273-1110-1 |
| |
| |
| Copyright issues |
| ---------------- |
| |
| Python is COPYRIGHTED but free to use for all. See the full copyright |
| notice at the end of this file and in the file Misc/COPYRIGHT. |
| |
| The Python distribution is *not* affected by the GNU Public Licence |
| (GPL). There are interfaces to some GNU code but these are entirely |
| optional and no GNU code is distributed with Python. |
| |
| |
| Build instructions |
| ================== |
| |
| Before you can build Python, you must first configure it. |
| Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been streamlined |
| for most Unix installations, so all you have to do is type a few |
| commands, optionally edit one file, and sit back. There are some |
| platforms where things are not quite as smooth; see the platform |
| specific notes below. If you want to build for multiple platforms |
| sharing the same source tree, see the section on VPATH below. |
| |
| You start by running the script "./configure", which figures out your |
| system configuration and creates several Makefiles. (It takes a |
| minute or two -- please be patient!) When it's done, you are ready to |
| run make. You may want to pass options to the configure script -- see |
| the section below on configuration options and variables. |
| |
| To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory. |
| This will recursively run make in each of the subdirectories Parser, |
| Objects, Python and Modules, creating a library file in each one. The |
| executable of the interpreter is built in the Modules subdirectory and |
| moved up here when it is built. If you want or need to, you can also |
| chdir into each subdirectory in turn and run make there manually (do |
| the Modules subdirectory last!). |
| |
| Once you have built an interpreter, see the subsections below on |
| testing, configuring additional modules, and installation. If you run |
| in trouble, see the next section. |
| |
| |
| Troubleshooting |
| --------------- |
| |
| See also the platform specific notes in the next section. |
| |
| If recursive makes fail, try invoking make as "make MAKE=make". |
| |
| If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ |
| (http://grail.cnri.reston.va.us/cgi-bin/faqw.py or |
| http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for hints on what can go wrong, |
| and how to fix it. |
| |
| If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all |
| object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or |
| not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable |
| problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report! |
| |
| If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that |
| should be there, inspect the config.log file. When you fix a |
| configure problem, be sure to remove config.cache! |
| |
| If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no |
| longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know |
| whether this option is needed; all I can do is test whether it is |
| accepted without error. On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it |
| is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c, |
| which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000). If the |
| warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from |
| the OPT variable. |
| |
| |
| Platform specific notes |
| ----------------------- |
| |
| (Some of these may no longer apply. If you find you can build Python |
| on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here, let |
| me know so I can remove them!) |
| |
| 64-bit platforms: The modules audioop, imageop and rgbimg don't work. |
| Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They |
| contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a |
| fix, let me know!) |
| |
| Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris |
| 2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest |
| way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as |
| the "CC" environment variable when running the configure |
| script). |
| |
| Linux: On Linux version 1.x, once you've built Python, use it to run |
| the regen script in the Lib/linux1 directory. Apparently |
| the files as distributed don't match the system headers on |
| some Linux versions. (The "h2py" command refers to |
| Tools/scripts/h2py.py.) The modules distributed for Linux 2.x |
| should be okay. Shared library support now works by default |
| on ELF-based x86 Linux systems. (Note: when you change the |
| status of a module from static to shared, you must remove its |
| .o file or do a "make clean".) |
| |
| Under RedHat Linux 5.0, if upgraded from a previous version, |
| remove the LinuxThreads packages. This is needed because |
| LinuxThreads conflicts with the new thread support provided by |
| glibc. Before running Python's configure script, use the |
| following commands as root (version numbers may differ; these |
| are from a stock 4.2 install): |
| |
| % rpm -qa | grep ^linuxthread |
| linuxthreads-0.5-1 |
| linuxthreads-devel-0.5-1 |
| % rpm -e linuxthreads linuxthreads-devel |
| |
| While Python only needs this to be done to allow thread |
| support to be included, the conflicts these packages create |
| with the new glibc may cause other packages which use threads |
| to fail as well, so their removal is a good idea regardless of |
| how you configure python. |
| |
| More recently, a problem with threads and fork() was tracked |
| down to a bug in the pthreads code in glibc version 2.0.5; |
| glibc version 2.0.7 solves the problem. This causes the |
| popen2 test to fail; problem and solution reported by Pablo |
| Bleyer. |
| |
| Also under RedHat Linux 5.0, the crypt module now needs the |
| -lcrypt option. Uncomment this flag in Modules/Setup, or |
| comment out the crypt module in the same file. |
| |
| DEC Unix: When enabling threads, use --with-dec-threads, not |
| --with-thread. When using GCC, it is possible to get an |
| internal compiler error if optimization is used. This was |
| reported for GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c. Manually compile |
| the affected file without optimization to solve the problem. |
| |
| DEC Ultrix: compile with GCC to avoid bugs in the native compiler, |
| and pass SHELL=/bin/sh5 to Make when installing. |
| |
| AIX: A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in |
| place. See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done. |
| (The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases |
| has been worked around by a minimal code change.) |
| |
| HP-UX: Please read the file Misc/HPUX-NOTES for shared libraries. |
| When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the |
| OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight |
| this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20) |
| even though config.h defines it. |
| |
| Minix: When using ack, use "CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure"! |
| |
| SCO: The following only apply to SCO 3; Python builds out of the box |
| on SCO 5 (or so I've heard). |
| |
| 1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the |
| defs. This is because all the SCO header files are broken. |
| Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is |
| conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined. |
| |
| 2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt |
| stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS |
| needed be set to: |
| |
| LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i' |
| |
| SunOS 4.x: When using the standard "cc" compiler, certain modules may |
| not be compilable because they use non-K&R syntax. You should |
| be able to get a basic Python interpreter by commenting out |
| such modules in the Modules/Setup file, but I really recommend |
| using gcc. |
| |
| When using the SunPro C compiler, you may want to use the |
| '-Xa' option instead of '-Xc', to enable some needed non-ANSI |
| Sunisms. |
| |
| NeXT: To build fat binaries, use the --with-next-archs switch |
| described below. |
| |
| QNX: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes: |
| configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on |
| ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build, |
| test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX: |
| |
| 1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \ |
| ./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm="" |
| |
| 2) copy Modules/Setup.in to Modules/Setup; edit Modules/Setup to |
| activate everything that makes sense for your system... tested |
| here at QNX with the following modules: |
| |
| array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath, |
| crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop, |
| _locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre, |
| posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop, rgbimg, rotor, |
| select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct, |
| syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib, audioop, imageop, rgbimg |
| |
| 3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash |
| |
| or, if you feel the need for speed: |
| |
| make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt" |
| |
| 4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test |
| |
| Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I |
| think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\ |
| |
| 5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install |
| |
| If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but |
| I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're |
| probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a |
| little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile |
| in the Modules directory to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k |
| |
| BeOS: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes: |
| See BeOS/README for notes about compiling/installing Python on |
| BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC platform is |
| supported for R3; both PowerPC and x86 are supported for R4. |
| |
| Cray T3E: Konrad Hinsen writes: |
| 1) Don't use gcc. It compiles Python/graminit.c into something |
| that the Cray assembler doesn't like. Cray's cc seems to work |
| fine. |
| 2) Uncomment modules md5 (won't compile) and audioop (will |
| crash the interpreter during the test suite). |
| If you run the test suite, two tests will fail (rotate and |
| binascii), but these are not the modules you'd expect to need |
| on a Cray. |
| |
| SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make) |
| does not check whether a command actually changed the file it |
| is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make" |
| it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much |
| smarter "smake " utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If |
| you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake |
| smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make). |
| |
| A bug in the MIPSpro 7.1 compiler's optimizer seems to break |
| Modules/pypcre.c. The short term solution is to compile it |
| without optimization. The bug is fixed in version 7.2.1 of |
| the compiler. |
| |
| A bug in gcc-2.8.1 sets sys.maxint to -1 which *also* seems to |
| break Modules/pypcre.c. The egcs versions of gcc fix this |
| problem. Or use configure --without-gcc to compile with SGI's |
| compiler, if you have it. (Raj Srinivasan, Kelvin Chu) |
| |
| OS/2: If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++ |
| compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory |
| and type NMAKE. Threading and sockets are supported by default |
| in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE. |
| |
| |
| Configuring threads |
| ------------------- |
| |
| The main switch to configure threads is to run the configure script |
| (see below) with the --with-thread switch (on DEC, use |
| --with-dec-threads). Unfortunately, on some platforms, additional |
| compiler and/or linker options are required. Below is a table of |
| those options, collected by Bill Janssen. I would love to automate |
| this process more, but the information below is not enough to write a |
| patch for the configure.in file, so manual intervention is required. |
| If you patch the configure.in file and are confident that the patch |
| works, please send me the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure |
| script itself -- it is regenerated each the configure.in file |
| changes.) |
| |
| Compiler switches for threads |
| ............................. |
| |
| OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads |
| (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) (1) compile only (2) compile & link |
| |
| SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -mt |
| SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT |
| DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -pthread |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing) |
| (buhrt@iquest.net) |
| AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing) |
| (buhrt@iquest.net) |
| IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing) |
| (robertl@cwi.nl) |
| |
| |
| Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads |
| ........................................... |
| |
| OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads |
| |
| SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread |
| SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread |
| DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing) |
| (buhrt@iquest.net) |
| IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread |
| (jph@emilia.engr.sgi.com) |
| |
| |
| Configuring additional built-in modules |
| --------------------------------------- |
| |
| You can configure the interpreter to contain fewer or more built-in |
| modules by editing the file Modules/Setup. This file is initially |
| copied (when the toplevel Makefile makes Modules/Makefile for the |
| first time) from Setup.in; if it does not exist yet, make a copy |
| yourself. Never edit Setup.in -- always edit Setup. Read the |
| comments in the file for information on what kind of edits you can |
| make. When you have edited Setup, Makefile and config.c in Modules |
| will automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make in the |
| toplevel directory. (When working inside the Modules directory, use |
| "make Makefile; make".) |
| |
| The default collection of modules should build on any Unix system, but |
| many optional modules should work on all modern Unices (e.g. try dbm, |
| nis, termios, timing, syslog, curses, new, soundex, parser). Often |
| the quickest way to determine whether a particular module works or not |
| is to see if it will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get |
| compilation or link errors, disable it -- you're missing support. |
| |
| On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific |
| system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware. |
| |
| For SunOS and Solaris, enable module "sunaudiodev" to support the |
| audio device. |
| |
| In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local. |
| (the makesetup script processes both). You may find it more |
| convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone. Then, when |
| installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local |
| file. |
| |
| |
| Setting the optimization/debugging options |
| ------------------------------------------ |
| |
| If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for |
| the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make |
| command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python |
| on most platforms. The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the |
| environment when the configure script is run overrides this default |
| (likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base |
| set of libraries to link with). |
| |
| |
| Testing |
| ------- |
| |
| To test the interpreter that you have just built, type "make test". |
| This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with |
| the compiled files left by the previous test run). The test set |
| produces some output. You can generally ignore the messages about |
| skipped tests due to an optional feature that can't be imported (if |
| you want to test those modules, edit Modules/Setup to configure them). |
| If a messages is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core |
| dump is produced, something's wrong. On some Linux systems (those |
| that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a |
| non-standard-compliant implementation of strftime() in the C library. |
| Please ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6. |
| |
| IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report, |
| *don't* include the output of "make test". It is useless. Run the |
| test that fails manually, as follows: |
| |
| python ../Lib/test/test_whatever.py |
| |
| (substituting the top of the source tree for .. if you built in a |
| different directory). This runs the test in verbose mode. |
| |
| |
| Installing |
| ---------- |
| |
| To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules |
| (see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page, |
| just type |
| |
| make install |
| |
| This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories the |
| directory given with the --prefix option to configure or the 'prefix' |
| Make variable (default /usr/local), and all binary and other |
| platform-specific files in subdirectories if the directory given by |
| --exec-prefix or the 'exec_prefix' Make variable (defaults to the |
| --prefix directory). |
| |
| All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their |
| name, e.g. the library modules are installed in |
| "/usr/local/lib/python1.5/" by default. The Python binary is |
| installed as "python1.5" and a hard link named "python" is created. |
| The only file not installed with a version number in its name is the |
| manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1" by default. |
| |
| If you have a previous installation of a pre-1.5 Python that you don't |
| want to replace yet, use |
| |
| make altinstall |
| |
| This installs the same set of files as "make install" except it |
| doesn't create the hard link to "python1.5" named "python" and it |
| doesn't install the manual page at all. |
| |
| The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for |
| Emacs. (But then again, more recent versions of Emacs may already |
| have it!) This is the file Misc/python-mode.el; follow the |
| instructions that came with Emacs for installation of site specific |
| files. |
| |
| |
| Configuration options and variables |
| ----------------------------------- |
| |
| Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure |
| script. |
| |
| WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you |
| must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule: |
| after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove |
| Modules/getpath.o. |
| |
| --with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if |
| it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is |
| installed but broken on your platform, pass the option |
| --without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the |
| name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the |
| advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is |
| remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck |
| option. |
| |
| --prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the |
| Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib}, |
| you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter |
| binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the |
| library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass |
| --exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the |
| installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the |
| interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also |
| affects the default module search path (sys.path), when |
| Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option |
| prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the |
| prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient |
| than re-running the configure script if you change your mind |
| about the install prefix... |
| |
| --with-readline: This option is no longer supported. To use GNU |
| readline, enable module "readline" in the Modules/Setup file. |
| |
| --with-thread: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple threads. |
| To enable this, pass --with-thread. (--with-threads is an |
| alias.) If the library required for threads lives in a |
| peculiar place, you can use --with-thread=DIRECTORY. NOTE: |
| you must also enable the thread module by uncommenting it in |
| the Modules/Setup file. (Threads aren't enabled automatically |
| because there are run-time penalties when support for them is |
| compiled in even if you don't use them.) IMPORTANT: run "make |
| clean" after changing (either enabling or disabling) this |
| option, or you will get link errors! Note: for DEC Unix use |
| --with-dec-threads instead. |
| |
| --with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is |
| supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is |
| ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z. |
| This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl |
| library!) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY |
| is the absolute pathname of the dl library. (Don't bother on |
| IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style |
| shared libraries.) Support for this feature is deprecated. |
| |
| --with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumoured to be supported |
| on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent |
| Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST. This is done using a |
| combination of the GNU dynamic loading package |
| (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an |
| emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation |
| can be found at |
| ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z). To |
| enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call the |
| configure passing it the option |
| --with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is |
| the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and |
| DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library. |
| (Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic |
| linking using shared libraries.) Support for this feature is |
| deprecated. |
| |
| --with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative |
| versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library |
| (default the empty string) using the options |
| --with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. E.g. |
| if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C compiler |
| to use the shared C library, you can pass --with-libc=-lc_s. |
| These libraries are passed after all other libraries, the C |
| library last. |
| |
| --with-next-archs='arch1 arch2': Under NEXTSTEP, this will build |
| all compiled binaries with the architectures listed. Includes |
| correctly setting the target architecture specific resource |
| directory. (This option is not supported on other platforms.) |
| |
| --with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python |
| linked against. |
| |
| |
| Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature) |
| ------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it |
| usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each |
| architecture you want to support. If the make program supports the |
| VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each |
| architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the |
| appropriate machine with the appropriate options). This creates the |
| necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein. The Makefiles |
| contain a line VPATH=... which points to directory containing the |
| actual sources. (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if |
| you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.) |
| |
| For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python |
| in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel |
| directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python): |
| |
| $ mkdir /usr/tmp/python |
| $ cd /usr/tmp/python |
| $ ~guido/src/python/configure |
| [...] |
| $ make |
| [...] |
| $ |
| |
| Note that Modules/Makefile copies the original Setup file to the build |
| directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can |
| edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this |
| reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked |
| automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy |
| of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The |
| makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be |
| fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it |
| doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local; |
| however this assumes that you only need to add modules.) |
| |
| |
| Building on non-UNIX systems |
| ---------------------------- |
| |
| For Windows 95/98 or NT, assuming you have MS VC++ 5.0 or 6.0, the |
| project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw. (The |
| project files are for VC++ 5.0, but VC++ 6.0 will convert them for |
| you -- start VC++ and then use Open Workspace.) |
| |
| For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular Windows 3.1 and |
| for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt". |
| |
| For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available, |
| for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac |
| development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group |
| (http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to |
| pythonmac-sig-request@python.org). |
| |
| Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these |
| platforms -- see http://www.python.org/python/. |
| |
| To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the |
| effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this |
| has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file |
| config.h.in to config.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual |
| configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as |
| 1 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone |
| otherwise; however RETSIGTYPE must always be defined, either as int or |
| as void, and the *_t type symbols must be defined as some variant of |
| int if they need to be defined at all. |
| |
| |
| |
| Miscellaneous issues |
| ==================== |
| |
| Documentation |
| ------------- |
| |
| All documentation is provided online in a variety of formats. In |
| order of importance for new users: Tutorial, Library Reference, |
| Language Reference, Extending & Embedding, and the Python/C API. |
| Especially the Library Reference is of immense value since much of |
| Python's power (including the built-in data types and functions!) is |
| described there. |
| |
| All documentation is also available online via the Python web site |
| (http://www.python.org/, see below). It is available online for |
| occaissional reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for |
| faster access. The documents are available in HTML, PostScript, PDF, |
| HTML Help, and LaTeX; the LaTeX version is primarily for documentation |
| authors or people with special formatting requirements. |
| |
| |
| Emacs mode |
| ---------- |
| |
| There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file |
| Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it |
| is now maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw |
| <bwarsaw@cnri.reston.va.us>. The latest version, along with various |
| other contributed Python-related Emacs goodies, is online at |
| <http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode>. And if you are planning to |
| edit the Python C code, please pick up the latest version of CC Mode |
| <http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode>; it contains a "python" style |
| used throughout most of the Python C source files. |
| |
| |
| Web site |
| -------- |
| |
| Python's own web site has URL http://www.python.org/. Come visit us! |
| There are a number of mirrors, and a list of mirrors is accessible |
| from the home page -- try a mirror that's close you you. |
| |
| |
| Ftp site |
| -------- |
| |
| Python's own ftp site is ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/. There are |
| numerous mirrors; the list of mirrors is accessible from |
| http://www.python.org/. |
| |
| |
| Newsgroups |
| ---------- |
| |
| Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about |
| Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup |
| for Python-related announcements. These are also accessible as |
| mailing lists, see the next item. |
| |
| Archives are accessible via Deja News; the Python website has a |
| query form for the archives at http://www.python.org/search/. |
| |
| |
| Mailing lists |
| ------------- |
| |
| See http://www.python.org/psa/MailingLists.html for an overview of the |
| many Python related mailing lists. |
| |
| |
| Bug reports |
| ----------- |
| |
| Bugs are best reported to the comp.lang.python newsgroup (or the |
| Python mailing list) -- see the section "Newsgroups" above. Before |
| posting, check the newsgroup archives (see above) to see if your bug |
| has already been reported! If you don't want to go public, send them |
| to me: <guido@python.org>. |
| |
| |
| Questions |
| --------- |
| |
| For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's |
| best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see |
| above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or |
| mailing list, send questions to <python-help@python.org> (a group of |
| volunteers which does *not* include me). Because of my work and email |
| volume, I'm often be slow in answering questions sent to me directly; |
| I prefer to answer questions posted to the newsgroup. |
| |
| |
| The Tk interface |
| ---------------- |
| |
| Tk (the user interface component of John Ousterhout's Tcl language) is |
| also usable from Python. Since this requires that you first build and |
| install Tcl/Tk, the Tk interface is not enabled by default. Python |
| supports all Tcl/Tk versions from version 7.5/4.1 through 8.0 (and it |
| is expected that it will also work with newer versions). Tcl/Tk |
| 7.4/4.0 is no longer supported. 8.0 or any later non-alpha non-beta |
| release is recommended. |
| |
| See http://sunscript.sun.com/ for more info on Tcl/Tk, including the |
| on-line manual pages. |
| |
| |
| To enable the Python/Tk interface, once you've built and installed |
| Tcl/Tk, load the file Modules/Setup in your favorite text editor and |
| search for the string "_tkinter". Then follow the instructions found |
| there. If you have installed Tcl/Tk or X11 in unusual places, you |
| will have to edit the first line to fix or add -I and -L options. |
| (Also see the general instructions at the top of that file.) |
| |
| There is little documentation on how to use Tkinter; however most of |
| the Tk manual pages apply quite straightforwardly. Begin with |
| fetching the "Tk Lifesaver" document, |
| e.g. ftp://ftp.python.org/pub/python/doc/tkinter-doc.tar.gz (a gzipped |
| tar file containing a PostScript file) or the on-line version |
| http://www.python.org/doc/life-preserver/index.html. Reading the |
| Tkinter.py source will reveal most details on how Tkinter calls are |
| translated into Tcl code. |
| |
| A more recent introduction to Tkinter programming, by Fredrik Lundh, |
| is at http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/index.htm. |
| |
| There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory, in the subdirectories |
| guido, matt and www (the matt and guido subdirectories have been |
| overhauled to use more recent Tkinter coding conventions). |
| |
| Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which |
| lives in Lib/tkinter/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter" |
| (lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in |
| Modules/_tkinter.c. Demos and normal Tk applications only import the |
| Python Tkinter module -- only the latter uses the C _tkinter module |
| directly. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled |
| and linked into the Python interpreter -- the _tkinter line in the |
| Setup file does this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module, |
| sys.path must be set correctly -- the TKPATH assignment in the Setup |
| file takes care of this, but only if you install Python properly |
| ("make install libinstall"). (You can also use dynamic loading for |
| the C _tkinter module, in which case you must manually fix up sys.path |
| or set $PYTHONPATH for the Python Tkinter module.) |
| |
| |
| Distribution structure |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| Most subdirectories have their own README file. Most files have |
| comments. |
| |
| Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs |
| Grammar/ Input for the parser generator |
| Include/ Public header files |
| Lib/ Python library modules |
| Makefile.in Source from which config.status creates Makefile |
| Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files |
| Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules |
| Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types |
| PC/ PC porting files (DOS, Windows, OS/2) |
| PCbuild/ Directory where you should build for Windows NT/95 |
| Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling |
| Python/ The "compiler" and interpreter |
| README The file you're reading now |
| Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python |
| acconfig.h Additional input for the autoheader program |
| config.h.in Source from which config.status creates config.h |
| configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output) |
| configure.in Configuration specification (GNU autoconf input) |
| install-sh Shell script used to install files |
| |
| The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by |
| the configuration and build processes: |
| |
| Makefile Build rules |
| config.cache cache of configuration variables |
| config.h Configuration header |
| config.log Log from last configure run |
| config.status Status from last run of configure script |
| libpython1.5.a The library archive |
| python The executable interpreter |
| tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs |
| |
| |
| Author's address |
| ================ |
| |
| Guido van Rossum |
| CNRI |
| 1895 Preston White Drive |
| Reston, VA 20191 |
| USA |
| |
| E-mail: guido@cnri.reston.va.us or guido@python.org |
| |
| |
| |
| Copyright notice |
| ================ |
| |
| The Python source is copyrighted, but you can freely use and copy it |
| as long as you don't change or remove the copyright notice: |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Copyright 1991-1995 by Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam, |
| The Netherlands. |
| |
| All Rights Reserved |
| |
| Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its |
| documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, |
| provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that |
| both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in |
| supporting documentation, and that the names of Stichting Mathematisch |
| Centrum or CWI or Corporation for National Research Initiatives or |
| CNRI not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to |
| distribution of the software without specific, written prior |
| permission. |
| |
| While CWI is the initial source for this software, a modified version |
| is made available by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives |
| (CNRI) at the Internet address ftp://ftp.python.org. |
| |
| STICHTING MATHEMATISCH CENTRUM AND CNRI DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH |
| REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF |
| MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL STICHTING MATHEMATISCH |
| CENTRUM OR CNRI BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL |
| DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR |
| PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER |
| TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR |
| PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| |
| |
| --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) |