| This is Python 3000 -- unversioned (branched off 2.5 pre alpha 1) |
| ================================================================= |
| |
| Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Python Software Foundation. |
| All rights reserved. |
| |
| Copyright (c) 2000 BeOpen.com. |
| All rights reserved. |
| |
| Copyright (c) 1995-2001 Corporation for National Research Initiatives. |
| All rights reserved. |
| |
| Copyright (c) 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum. |
| All rights reserved. |
| |
| |
| License information |
| ------------------- |
| |
| See the file "LICENSE" for information on the history of this |
| software, terms & conditions for usage, and a DISCLAIMER OF ALL |
| WARRANTIES. |
| |
| This Python distribution contains no GNU General Public Licensed |
| (GPLed) code so it may be used in proprietary projects just like prior |
| Python distributions. There are interfaces to some GNU code but these |
| are entirely optional. |
| |
| All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective |
| holders. |
| |
| |
| What's new in this release? |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| See the file "Misc/NEWS". |
| |
| |
| 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". This creates an |
| executable "./python"; to install in /usr/local, first do "su root" |
| and then "make install". |
| |
| The section `Build instructions' below is still recommended reading. |
| |
| |
| What is Python anyway? |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| Python is an interpreted, interactive object-oriented programming |
| language suitable (amongst other uses) for distributed application |
| development, scripting, numeric computing and system testing. Python |
| is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic or |
| Scheme. To find out more about what Python can do for you, point your |
| browser to http://www.python.org/. |
| |
| |
| How do I learn Python? |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see |
| http://docs.python.org/ for online and downloadable versions, as well |
| as a list of other introductions, and reference documentation. |
| |
| There's a quickly growing set of books on Python. See |
| http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks for a list. |
| |
| |
| 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. The |
| Library Reference is especially of immense value since much of |
| Python's power is described there, including the built-in data types |
| and functions! |
| |
| All documentation is also available online at the Python web site |
| (http://docs.python.org/, see below). It is available online for |
| occasional reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for faster |
| access. The documentation is available in HTML, PostScript, PDF, and |
| LaTeX formats; the LaTeX version is primarily for documentation |
| authors, translators, and people with special formatting requirements. |
| |
| Unfortunately, new-style classes (new in Python 2.2) have not yet been |
| integrated into Python's standard documention. A collection of |
| pointers to what has been written is at: |
| |
| http://www.python.org/doc/newstyle.html |
| |
| |
| Web sites |
| --------- |
| |
| New Python releases and related technologies are published at |
| http://www.python.org/. Come visit us! |
| |
| There's also a Python community web site at |
| http://starship.python.net/. |
| |
| |
| Newsgroups and Mailing Lists |
| ---------------------------- |
| |
| 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 http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for an |
| overview of these and many other Python-related mailing lists. |
| |
| Archives are accessible via the Google Groups usenet archive; see |
| http://groups.google.com/. The mailing lists are also archived, see |
| http://www.python.org/community/lists.html for details. |
| |
| |
| Bug reports |
| ----------- |
| |
| To report or search for bugs, please use the Python Bug |
| Tracker at http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470. |
| |
| |
| Patches and contributions |
| ------------------------- |
| |
| To submit a patch or other contribution, please use the Python Patch |
| Manager at http://sourceforge.net/patch/?group_id=5470. Guidelines |
| for patch submission may be found at http://www.python.org/patches/. |
| |
| If you have a proposal to change Python, it's best to submit a Python |
| Enhancement Proposal (PEP) first. All current PEPs, as well as |
| guidelines for submitting a new PEP, are listed at |
| http://www.python.org/peps/. |
| |
| |
| 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 help@python.org (a group of volunteers |
| who answer questions as they can). The newsgroup is the most |
| efficient way to ask public questions. |
| |
| |
| Build instructions |
| ================== |
| |
| Before you can build Python, you must first configure it. |
| Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been automated |
| for Unix and Linux installations, so all you usually have to do is |
| type a few commands 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. |
| |
| Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your |
| system configuration and creates the Makefile. (It takes a minute or |
| two -- please be patient!) You may want to pass options to the |
| configure script -- see the section below on configuration options and |
| variables. When it's done, you are ready to run make. |
| |
| To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory. |
| If you have changed the configuration, the Makefile may have to be |
| rebuilt. In this case you may have to run make again to correctly |
| build your desired target. The interpreter executable is built in the |
| top level directory. |
| |
| Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on |
| testing and installation. If you run into trouble, see the next |
| section. |
| |
| Previous versions of Python used a manual configuration process that |
| involved editing the file Modules/Setup. While this file still exists |
| and manual configuration is still supported, it is rarely needed any |
| more: almost all modules are automatically built as appropriate under |
| guidance of the setup.py script, which is run by Make after the |
| interpreter has been built. |
| |
| |
| Troubleshooting |
| --------------- |
| |
| See also the platform specific notes in the next section. |
| |
| If you run into other trouble, see the FAQ |
| (http://www.python.org/doc/faq) 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. |
| |
| 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 we 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. |
| |
| If you get failures in test_long, or sys.maxint gets set to -1, you |
| are probably experiencing compiler bugs, usually related to |
| optimization. This is a common problem with some versions of gcc, and |
| some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be worked around |
| by turning off optimization. Consider switching to stable versions |
| (gcc 2.95.2, gcc 3.x, or contact your vendor.) |
| |
| From Python 2.0 onward, all Python C code is ANSI C. Compiling using |
| old K&R-C-only compilers is no longer possible. ANSI C compilers are |
| available for all modern systems, either in the form of updated |
| compilers from the vendor, or one of the free compilers (gcc). |
| |
| Unsupported systems |
| ------------------- |
| |
| XXX This section is out of date! |
| |
| A number of features are not supported in Python 2.3 anymore. Some |
| support code is still present, but will be removed in Python 2.4. |
| If you still need to use current Python versions on these systems, |
| please send a message to python-dev@python.org indicating that you |
| volunteer to support this system. |
| |
| More specifically, the following systems are not supported any |
| longer: |
| - SunOS 4 |
| - DYNIX |
| - dgux |
| - Minix |
| - Irix 4 and --with-sgi-dl |
| - Linux 1 |
| - Systems defining __d6_pthread_create (configure.in) |
| - Systems defining PY_PTHREAD_D4, PY_PTHREAD_D6, |
| or PY_PTHREAD_D7 in thread_pthread.h |
| - Systems using --with-dl-dld |
| - Systems using --without-universal-newlines |
| |
| 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, |
| submit a documentation bug report to SourceForge (see Bug Reports |
| above) so we can remove them!) |
| |
| Unix platforms: If your vendor still ships (and you still use) Berkeley DB |
| 1.85 you will need to edit Modules/Setup to build the bsddb185 |
| module and add a line to sitecustomize.py which makes it the |
| default. In Modules/Setup a line like |
| |
| bsddb185 bsddbmodule.c |
| |
| should work. (You may need to add -I, -L or -l flags to direct the |
| compiler and linker to your include files and libraries.) |
| |
| XXX I think this next bit is out of date: |
| |
| 64-bit platforms: The modules audioop, imageop and rgbimg don't work. |
| The setup.py script disables them on 64-bit installations. |
| 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 us 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). |
| |
| When using GCC on Solaris, beware of binutils 2.13 or GCC |
| versions built using it. This mistakenly enables the |
| -zcombreloc option which creates broken shared libraries on |
| Solaris. binutils 2.12 works, and the binutils maintainers |
| are aware of the problem. Binutils 2.13.1 only partially |
| fixed things. It appears that 2.13.2 solves the problem |
| completely. This problem is known to occur with Solaris 2.7 |
| and 2.8, but may also affect earlier and later versions of the |
| OS. |
| |
| When the dynamic loader complains about errors finding shared |
| libraries, such as |
| |
| ld.so.1: ./python: fatal: libstdc++.so.5: open failed: |
| No such file or directory |
| |
| you need to first make sure that the library is available on |
| your system. Then, you need to instruct the dynamic loader how |
| to find it. You can choose any of the following strategies: |
| |
| 1. When compiling Python, set LD_RUN_PATH to the directories |
| containing missing libraries. |
| 2. When running Python, set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to these directories. |
| 3. Use crle(8) to extend the search path of the loader. |
| 4. Modify the installed GCC specs file, adding -R options into the |
| *link: section. |
| |
| The complex object fails to compile on Solaris 10 with gcc 3.4 (at |
| least up to 3.4.3). To work around it, define Py_HUGE_VAL as |
| HUGE_VAL(), e.g.: |
| |
| make CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()" -I. -I$(srcdir)/Include' |
| ./python setup.py CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()"' |
| |
| Linux: 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. |
| |
| Red Hat Linux: Red Hat 9 built Python2.2 in UCS-4 mode and hacked |
| Tcl to support it. To compile Python2.3 with Tkinter, you will |
| need to pass --enable-unicode=ucs4 flag to ./configure. |
| |
| There's an executable /usr/bin/python which is Python |
| 1.5.2 on most older Red Hat installations; several key Red Hat tools |
| require this version. Python 2.1.x may be installed as |
| /usr/bin/python2. The Makefile installs Python as |
| /usr/local/bin/python, which may or may not take precedence |
| over /usr/bin/python, depending on how you have set up $PATH. |
| |
| FreeBSD 3.x and probably platforms with NCurses that use libmytinfo or |
| similar: When using cursesmodule, the linking is not done in |
| the correct order with the defaults. Remove "-ltermcap" from |
| the readline entry in Setup, and use as curses entry: "curses |
| cursesmodule.c -lmytinfo -lncurses -ltermcap" - "mytinfo" (so |
| called on FreeBSD) should be the name of the auxiliary library |
| required on your platform. Normally, it would be linked |
| automatically, but not necessarily in the correct order. |
| |
| BSDI: BSDI versions before 4.1 have known problems with threads, |
| which can cause strange errors in a number of modules (for |
| instance, the 'test_signal' test script will hang forever.) |
| Turning off threads (with --with-threads=no) or upgrading to |
| BSDI 4.1 solves this problem. |
| |
| DEC Unix: Run configure with --with-dec-threads, or with |
| --with-threads=no if no threads are desired (threads are on by |
| default). 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.) If you get |
| errors about pthread_* functions, during compile or during |
| testing, try setting CC to a thread-safe (reentrant) compiler, |
| like "cc_r". For full C++ module support, set CC="xlC_r" (or |
| CC="xlC" without thread support). |
| |
| AIX 5.3: To build a 64-bit version with IBM's compiler, I used the |
| following: |
| |
| export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/vacpp/bin |
| ./configure --with-gcc="xlc_r -q64" --with-cxx="xlC_r -q64" \ |
| --disable-ipv6 AR="ar -X64" |
| make |
| |
| HP-UX: 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 pyconfig.h defines it. This seems unnecessary when |
| using HP/UX 11 and later - threading seems to work "out of the |
| box". |
| |
| HP-UX ia64: When building on the ia64 (Itanium) platform using HP's |
| compiler, some experience has shown that the compiler's |
| optimiser produces a completely broken version of python |
| (see http://www.python.org/sf/814976). To work around this, |
| edit the Makefile and remove -O from the OPT line. |
| |
| To build a 64-bit executable on an Itanium 2 system using HP's |
| compiler, use these environment variables: |
| |
| CC=cc |
| CXX=aCC |
| BASECFLAGS="+DD64" |
| LDFLAGS="+DD64 -lxnet" |
| |
| and call configure as: |
| |
| ./configure --without-gcc |
| |
| then *unset* the environment variables again before running |
| make. (At least one of these flags causes the build to fail |
| if it remains set.) You still have to edit the Makefile and |
| remove -O from the OPT line. |
| |
| HP PA-RISC 2.0: A recent bug report (http://www.python.org/sf/546117) |
| suggests that the C compiler in this 64-bit system has bugs |
| in the optimizer that break Python. Compiling without |
| optimization solves the problems. |
| |
| SCO: The following apply to SCO 3 only; Python builds out of the box |
| on SCO 5 (or so we'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' |
| |
| UnixWare: There are known bugs in the math library of the system, as well as |
| problems in the handling of threads (calling fork in one |
| thread may interrupt system calls in others). Therefore, test_math and |
| tests involving threads will fail until those problems are fixed. |
| |
| SunOS 4.x: When using the SunPro C compiler, you may want to use the |
| '-Xa' option instead of '-Xc', to enable some needed non-ANSI |
| Sunisms. |
| THIS SYSTEM IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED. |
| |
| NeXT: Not supported anymore. Start with the MacOSX/Darwin code if you |
| want to revive it. |
| |
| 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) 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 |
| to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k |
| |
| BeOS: See Misc/BeOS-NOTES 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: Mark Hadfield (m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz) writes: |
| Python can be built satisfactorily on a Cray T3E but based on |
| my experience with the NIWA T3E (2002-05-22, version 2.2.1) |
| there are a few bugs and gotchas. For more information see a |
| thread on comp.lang.python in May 2002 entitled "Building |
| Python on Cray T3E". |
| |
| 1) Use Cray's cc and not gcc. The latter was reported not to |
| work by Konrad Hinsen. It may work now, but it may not. |
| |
| 2) To set sys.platform to something sensible, pass the |
| following environment variable to the configure script: |
| |
| MACHDEP=unicosmk |
| |
| 2) Run configure with option "--enable-unicode=ucs4". |
| |
| 3) The Cray T3E does not support dynamic linking, so extension |
| modules have to be built by adding (or uncommenting) lines |
| in Modules/Setup. The minimum set of modules is |
| |
| posix, new, _sre, unicodedata |
| |
| On NIWA's vanilla T3E system the following have also been |
| included successfully: |
| |
| _codecs, _locale, _socket, _symtable, _testcapi, _weakref |
| array, binascii, cmath, cPickle, crypt, cStringIO, dbm |
| errno, fcntl, grp, math, md5, operator, parser, pcre, pwd |
| regex, rotor, select, struct, strop, syslog, termios |
| time, timing, xreadlines |
| |
| 4) Once the python executable and library have been built, make |
| will execute setup.py, which will attempt to build remaining |
| extensions and link them dynamically. Each of these attempts |
| will fail but should not halt the make process. This is |
| normal. |
| |
| 5) Running "make test" uses a lot of resources and causes |
| problems on our system. You might want to try running tests |
| singly or in small groups. |
| |
| 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). |
| |
| WARNING: There are bugs in the optimizer of some versions of |
| SGI's compilers that can cause bus errors or other strange |
| behavior, especially on numerical operations. To avoid this, |
| try building with "make OPT=". |
| |
| 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. |
| |
| Monterey (64-bit AIX): The current Monterey C compiler (Visual Age) |
| uses the OBJECT_MODE={32|64} environment variable to set the |
| compilation mode to either 32-bit or 64-bit (32-bit mode is |
| the default). Presumably you want 64-bit compilation mode for |
| this 64-bit OS. As a result you must first set OBJECT_MODE=64 |
| in your environment before configuring (./configure) or |
| building (make) Python on Monterey. |
| |
| Reliant UNIX: The thread support does not compile on Reliant UNIX, and |
| there is a (minor) problem in the configure script for that |
| platform as well. This should be resolved in time for a |
| future release. |
| |
| MacOSX: The tests will crash on both 10.1 and 10.2 with SEGV in |
| test_re and test_sre due to the small default stack size. If |
| you set the stack size to 2048 before doing a "make test" the |
| failure can be avoided. If you're using the tcsh (the default |
| on OSX), or csh shells use "limit stacksize 2048" and for the |
| bash shell, use "ulimit -s 2048". |
| |
| On naked Darwin you may want to add the configure option |
| "--disable-toolbox-glue" to disable the glue code for the Carbon |
| interface modules. The modules themselves are currently only built |
| if you add the --enable-framework option, see below. |
| |
| On a clean OSX /usr/local does not exist. Do a |
| "sudo mkdir -m 775 /usr/local" |
| before you do a make install. It is probably not a good idea to |
| do "sudo make install" which installs everything as superuser, |
| as this may later cause problems when installing distutils-based |
| additions. |
| |
| Some people have reported problems building Python after using "fink" |
| to install additional unix software. Disabling fink (remove all references |
| to /sw from your .profile or .login) should solve this. |
| |
| You may want to try the configure option "--enable-framework" |
| which installs Python as a framework. The location can be set |
| as argument to the --enable-framework option (default |
| /Library/Frameworks). A framework install is probably needed if you |
| want to use any Aqua-based GUI toolkit (whether Tkinter, wxPython, |
| Carbon, Cocoa or anything else). |
| |
| See Mac/OSX/README for more information on framework builds. |
| |
| Cygwin: With recent (relative to the time of writing, 2001-12-19) |
| Cygwin installations, there are problems with the interaction |
| of dynamic linking and fork(). This manifests itself in build |
| failures during the execution of setup.py. |
| |
| There are two workarounds that both enable Python (albeit |
| without threading support) to build and pass all tests on |
| NT/2000 (and most likely XP as well, though reports of testing |
| on XP would be appreciated). |
| |
| The workarounds: |
| |
| (a) the band-aid fix is to link the _socket module statically |
| rather than dynamically (which is the default). |
| |
| To do this, run "./configure --with-threads=no" including any |
| other options you need (--prefix, etc.). Then in Modules/Setup |
| uncomment the lines: |
| |
| #SSL=/usr/local/ssl |
| #_socket socketmodule.c \ |
| # -DUSE_SSL -I$(SSL)/include -I$(SSL)/include/openssl \ |
| # -L$(SSL)/lib -lssl -lcrypto |
| |
| and remove "local/" from the SSL variable. Finally, just run |
| "make"! |
| |
| (b) The "proper" fix is to rebase the Cygwin DLLs to prevent |
| base address conflicts. Details on how to do this can be |
| found in the following mail: |
| |
| http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html |
| |
| It is hoped that a version of this solution will be |
| incorporated into the Cygwin distribution fairly soon. |
| |
| Two additional problems: |
| |
| (1) Threading support should still be disabled due to a known |
| bug in Cygwin pthreads that causes test_threadedtempfile to |
| hang. |
| |
| (2) The _curses module does not build. This is a known |
| Cygwin ncurses problem that should be resolved the next time |
| that this package is released. |
| |
| On older versions of Cygwin, test_poll may hang and test_strftime |
| may fail. |
| |
| The situation on 9X/Me is not accurately known at present. |
| Some time ago, there were reports that the following |
| regression tests failed: |
| |
| test_pwd |
| test_select (hang) |
| test_socket |
| |
| Due to the test_select hang on 9X/Me, one should run the |
| regression test using the following: |
| |
| make TESTOPTS='-l -x test_select' test |
| |
| News regarding these platforms with more recent Cygwin |
| versions would be appreciated! |
| |
| AtheOS: From Octavian Cerna <tavy at ylabs.com>: |
| |
| Before building: |
| |
| Make sure you have shared versions of the libraries you |
| want to use with Python. You will have to compile them |
| yourself, or download precompiled packages. |
| |
| Recommended libraries: |
| |
| ncurses-4.2 |
| readline-4.2a |
| zlib-1.1.4 |
| |
| Build: |
| |
| $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/python |
| $ make |
| |
| Python is always built as a shared library, otherwise |
| dynamic loading would not work. |
| |
| Testing: |
| |
| $ make test |
| |
| Install: |
| |
| # make install |
| # pkgmanager -a /usr/python |
| |
| |
| AtheOS issues: |
| |
| - large file support: due to a stdio bug in glibc/libio, |
| access to large files may not work correctly. fseeko() |
| tries to seek to a negative offset. ftello() returns a |
| negative offset, it looks like a 32->64bit |
| sign-extension issue. The lowlevel functions (open, |
| lseek, etc) are OK. |
| - sockets: AF_UNIX is defined in the C library and in |
| Python, but not implemented in the system. |
| - select: poll is available in the C library, but does not |
| work (It does not return POLLNVAL for bad fds and |
| hangs). |
| - posix: statvfs and fstatvfs always return ENOSYS. |
| - disabled modules: |
| - mmap: not yet implemented in AtheOS |
| - nis: broken (on an unconfigured system |
| yp_get_default_domain() returns junk instead of |
| error) |
| - dl: dynamic loading doesn't work via dlopen() |
| - resource: getrimit and setrlimit are not yet |
| implemented |
| |
| - if you are getting segmentation faults, you probably are |
| low on memory. AtheOS doesn't handle very well an |
| out-of-memory condition and simply SEGVs the process. |
| |
| Tested on: |
| |
| AtheOS-0.3.7 |
| gcc-2.95 |
| binutils-2.10 |
| make-3.78 |
| |
| |
| Configuring the bsddb and dbm modules |
| ------------------------------------- |
| |
| Beginning with Python version 2.3, the PyBsddb package |
| <http://pybsddb.sf.net/> was adopted into Python as the bsddb package, |
| exposing a set of package-level functions which provide |
| backwards-compatible behavior. Only versions 3.1 through 4.1 of |
| Sleepycat's libraries provide the necessary API, so older versions |
| aren't supported through this interface. The old bsddb module has |
| been retained as bsddb185, though it is not built by default. Users |
| wishing to use it will have to tweak Modules/Setup to build it. The |
| dbm module will still be built against the Sleepycat libraries if |
| other preferred alternatives (ndbm, gdbm) are not found, though |
| versions of the Sleepycat library prior to 3.1 are not considered. |
| |
| |
| Configuring threads |
| ------------------- |
| |
| As of Python 2.0, threads are enabled by default. If you wish to |
| compile without threads, or if your thread support is broken, pass the |
| --with-threads=no switch to configure. Unfortunately, on some |
| platforms, additional compiler and/or linker options are required for |
| threads to work properly. Below is a table of those options, |
| collected by Bill Janssen. We 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 in the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure script itself |
| -- it is regenerated each time the configure.in file changes.) |
| |
| Compiler switches for threads |
| ............................. |
| |
| The definition of _REENTRANT should be configured automatically, if |
| that does not work on your system, or if _REENTRANT is defined |
| incorrectly, please report that as a bug. |
| |
| OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads |
| (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) compile & link |
| |
| SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris -mt |
| SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (nothing) |
| DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE -threads |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE -threads |
| (butenhof@zko.dec.com) |
| Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX -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) |
| |
| |
| Building a shared libpython |
| --------------------------- |
| |
| Starting with Python 2.3, the majority of the interpreter can be built |
| into a shared library, which can then be used by the interpreter |
| executable, and by applications embedding Python. To enable this feature, |
| configure with --enable-shared. |
| |
| If you enable this feature, the same object files will be used to create |
| a static library. In particular, the static library will contain object |
| files using position-independent code (PIC) on platforms where PIC flags |
| are needed for the shared library. |
| |
| |
| Configuring additional built-in modules |
| --------------------------------------- |
| |
| Starting with Python 2.1, the setup.py script at the top of the source |
| distribution attempts to detect which modules can be built and |
| automatically compiles them. Autodetection doesn't always work, so |
| you can still customize the configuration by editing the Modules/Setup |
| file; but this should be considered a last resort. The rest of this |
| section only applies if you decide to edit the Modules/Setup file. |
| You also need this to enable static linking of certain modules (which |
| is needed to enable profiling on some systems). |
| |
| This file is initially copied from Setup.dist by the configure script; |
| if it does not exist yet, create it by copying Modules/Setup.dist |
| yourself (configure will never overwrite it). Never edit Setup.dist |
| -- always edit Setup or Setup.local (see below). Read the comments in |
| the file for information on what kind of edits are allowed. When you |
| have edited Setup in the Modules directory, the interpreter will |
| automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make (in the toplevel |
| directory). |
| |
| Many useful modules can be built on any Unix system, but some optional |
| modules can't be reliably autodetected. 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 either missing support or need to adjust |
| the compilation and linking parameters for that module. |
| |
| On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific |
| system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware. These |
| modules will not be built by the setup.py script. |
| |
| 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). |
| |
| When compiling with GCC, the default value of OPT will also include |
| the -Wall and -Wstrict-prototypes options. |
| |
| Additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems can |
| be enabled by using the --with-pydebug option to the configure script. |
| |
| For flags that change binary compatibility, use the EXTRA_CFLAGS |
| variable. |
| |
| |
| Profiling |
| --------- |
| |
| If you want C profiling turned on, the easiest way is to run configure |
| with the CC environment variable to the necessary compiler |
| invocation. For example, on Linux, this works for profiling using |
| gprof(1): |
| |
| CC="gcc -pg" ./configure |
| |
| Note that on Linux, gprof apparently does not work for shared |
| libraries. The Makefile/Setup mechanism can be used to compile and |
| link most extension modules statically. |
| |
| |
| Testing |
| ------- |
| |
| To test the interpreter, type "make test" in the top-level directory. |
| 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 optional features which can't be imported. |
| If a message is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core |
| dump is produced, something is wrong. On some Linux systems (those |
| that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a |
| non-standard 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 |
| failing test 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 of |
| the directory given with the --prefix option to configure or to the |
| `prefix' Make variable (default /usr/local). All binary and other |
| platform-specific files will be installed in subdirectories if the |
| directory given by --exec-prefix or the `exec_prefix' Make variable |
| (defaults to the --prefix directory) is given. |
| |
| If DESTDIR is set, it will be taken as the root directory of the |
| installation, and files will be installed into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix), |
| $(DESTDIR)$(exec_prefix), etc. |
| |
| All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their |
| name, e.g. the library modules are installed in |
| "/usr/local/lib/python<version>/" by default, where <version> is the |
| <major>.<minor> release number (e.g. "2.1"). The Python binary is |
| installed as "python<version>" 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 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 "python<version>" 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 found in Misc/python-mode.el. (But then again, more recent |
| versions of Emacs may already have it.) Follow the instructions that |
| came with Emacs for installation of site-specific files. |
| |
| On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework, you |
| should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation. Note that this |
| installs the Python executable in a place that is not normally on your |
| PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in /usr/local/bin. |
| |
| |
| 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. GNU |
| readline is automatically enabled by setup.py when present. |
| |
| --with-threads: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple |
| threads, and support for this is enabled by default. To |
| disable this, pass --with-threads=no. If the library required |
| for threads lives in a peculiar place, you can use |
| --with-thread=DIRECTORY. 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.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. |
| |
| --with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumored 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 |
| 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.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. |
| |
| --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. For |
| example, 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-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python interpreter |
| is linked against. |
| |
| --with-cxx=<compiler>: Some C++ compilers require that main() is |
| compiled with the C++ if there is any C++ code in the application. |
| Specifically, g++ on a.out systems may require that to support |
| construction of global objects. With this option, the main() function |
| of Python will be compiled with <compiler>; use that only if you |
| plan to use C++ extension modules, and if your compiler requires |
| compilation of main() as a C++ program. |
| |
| |
| --with-pydebug: Enable additional debugging code to help track down |
| memory management problems. This allows printing a list of all |
| live objects when the interpreter terminates. |
| |
| --with(out)-universal-newlines: enable reading of text files with |
| foreign newline convention (default: enabled). In other words, |
| any of \r, \n or \r\n is acceptable as end-of-line character. |
| If enabled import and execfile will automatically accept any newline |
| in files. Python code can open a file with open(file, 'U') to |
| read it in universal newline mode. THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. |
| |
| --with-tsc: Profile using the Pentium timestamping counter (TSC). |
| |
| --with-fpectl: Enable building the ``fpectl'' module which can be used |
| to control the generation of SIGFPE and its conversion into a |
| Python exception. Note: this module is dangerous or useless |
| except in the hands of experts. |
| |
| |
| 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 a 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 configure 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 (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 7.1, the |
| project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw. See |
| PCbuild\readme.txt for detailed instructions. |
| |
| For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular MS VC++ 6.0 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/. |
| |
| 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 |
| pyconfig.h.in to pyconfig.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 the *_t type symbols must be defined as some |
| variant of int if they need to be defined at all. |
| |
| For all platforms, it's important that the build arrange to define the |
| preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the compiler command line in a release |
| build of Python (else assert() calls remain in the code, hurting |
| release-build performance). The Unix, Windows and Mac builds already |
| do this. |
| |
| |
| Miscellaneous issues |
| ==================== |
| |
| 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 (it's no |
| coincidence that they now both work on the same team). 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. (Newer versions of Emacs or XEmacs may already come with the |
| latest version of python-mode.) |
| |
| |
| Tkinter |
| ------- |
| |
| The setup.py script automatically configures this when it detects a |
| usable Tcl/Tk installation. This requires Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or |
| higher. |
| |
| For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page: |
| http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/ |
| |
| There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory. |
| |
| Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which |
| lives in Lib/lib-tk/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 import only the |
| Python Tkinter module -- only the latter imports the C _tkinter |
| module. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled |
| and linked into the Python interpreter -- the setup.py script does |
| this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module, sys.path must be |
| set correctly -- normal installation takes care of this. |
| |
| |
| Distribution structure |
| ---------------------- |
| |
| Most subdirectories have their own README files. Most files have |
| comments. |
| |
| .cvsignore Additional filename matching patterns for CVS to ignore |
| BeOS/ Files specific to the BeOS port |
| Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs |
| Doc/ Documentation sources (LaTeX) |
| Grammar/ Input for the parser generator |
| Include/ Public header files |
| LICENSE Licensing information |
| Lib/ Python library modules |
| Mac/ Macintosh specific resources |
| Makefile.pre.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile.pre |
| Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files |
| Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules |
| Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types |
| PC/ Files specific to PC ports (DOS, Windows, OS/2) |
| PCbuild/ Build directory for Microsoft Visual C++ |
| Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling |
| Python/ The byte-compiler and interpreter |
| README The file you're reading now |
| Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python |
| pyconfig.h.in Source from which pyconfig.h is created (GNU autoheader output) |
| configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output) |
| configure.in Configuration specification (input for GNU autoconf) |
| 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 |
| Makefile.pre Build rules before running Modules/makesetup |
| buildno Keeps track of the build number |
| config.cache Cache of configuration variables |
| pyconfig.h Configuration header |
| config.log Log from last configure run |
| config.status Status from last run of the configure script |
| getbuildinfo.o Object file from Modules/getbuildinfo.c |
| libpython<version>.a The library archive |
| python The executable interpreter |
| tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs |
| |
| |
| That's all, folks! |
| ------------------ |
| |
| |
| --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) |