blob: de1ec59a1ea74e6677812e430e4633ddd761d260 [file] [log] [blame]
Guido van Rossumc7f45412002-03-11 01:05:32 +00001This is Python version 2.3 (pre-alpha)
Jeremy Hyltonb6750812000-10-16 18:26:42 +00002==========================
Guido van Rossum91447632000-04-11 17:11:09 +00003
Michael W. Hudson494cdb62002-02-27 13:29:46 +00004Copyright (c) 2001, 2002 Python Software Foundation.
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00005All rights reserved.
6
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00007Copyright (c) 2000 BeOpen.com.
8All rights reserved.
9
Guido van Rossum23f7aed2001-04-12 20:53:31 +000010Copyright (c) 1995-2001 Corporation for National Research Initiatives.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000011All rights reserved.
12
Guido van Rossum6ebd2992000-09-03 04:47:47 +000013Copyright (c) 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000014All rights reserved.
15
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000016
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000017License information
18-------------------
19
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000020See the file "LICENSE" for information on the history of this
21software, terms & conditions for usage, and a DISCLAIMER OF ALL
22WARRANTIES.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000023
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000024This Python distribution contains no GNU General Public Licensed
25(GPLed) code so it may be used in proprietary projects just like prior
26Python distributions. There are interfaces to some GNU code but these
27are entirely optional.
28
29All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective
30holders.
Guido van Rossum79808261997-12-11 18:01:47 +000031
32
Guido van Rossum8d7d4ed1996-07-30 21:41:07 +000033What's new in this release?
34---------------------------
Guido van Rossum3ff96dd1996-07-30 18:05:04 +000035
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +000036See the file "Misc/NEWS".
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +000037
38If you don't read instructions
39------------------------------
40
41Congratulations on getting this far. :-)
42
43To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the
Guido van Rossum2dcec0c2002-02-04 01:59:23 +000044current directory and when it finishes, type "make". This creates an
45executable "./python"; to install in /usr/local, first do "su root"
46and then "make install".
47
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +000048The section `Build instructions' below is still recommended reading,
Guido van Rossum2dcec0c2002-02-04 01:59:23 +000049especially the part on customizing Modules/Setup.
Guido van Rossum3ff96dd1996-07-30 18:05:04 +000050
51
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000052What is Python anyway?
53----------------------
54
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000055Python is an interpreted object-oriented programming language suitable
56(amongst other uses) for distributed application development,
57scripting, numeric computing and system testing. Python is often
58compared to Tcl, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic or Scheme. To
59find out more about what Python can do for you, point your browser to
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +000060http://www.python.org/.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000061
62
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000063How do I learn Python?
64----------------------
65
Fred Drake0e6444c1999-05-17 19:35:01 +000066The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see
Guido van Rossumd0a42e22000-03-31 20:16:45 +000067http://www.python.org/doc/ for online and downloadable versions, as
68well as a list of other introductions, and reference documentation.
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000069
Guido van Rossumd0a42e22000-03-31 20:16:45 +000070There's a quickly growing set of books on Python. See
71http://www.python.org/psa/bookstore/ for a list.
Guido van Rossum8d90f9d1997-05-22 20:13:25 +000072
Guido van Rossumf501b4e1996-10-25 14:32:48 +000073
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000074Documentation
75-------------
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000076
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000077All documentation is provided online in a variety of formats. In
78order of importance for new users: Tutorial, Library Reference,
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000079Language Reference, Extending & Embedding, and the Python/C API. The
80Library Reference is especially of immense value since much of
81Python's power is described there, including the built-in data types
82and functions!
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +000083
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000084All documentation is also available online at the Python web site
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000085(http://www.python.org/doc/, see below). It is available online for
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000086occasional reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for faster
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +000087access. The documentation is available in HTML, PostScript, PDF, and
88LaTeX formats; the LaTeX version is primarily for documentation
89authors, translators, and people with special formatting requirements.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000090
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +000091The best documentation for the new (in Python 2.2) type/class
92unification features is Guido's tutorial introduction, at
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +000093
Guido van Rossum1c63a592002-07-09 18:44:09 +000094 http://www.python.org/2.2.1/descrintro.html
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +000095
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000096
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +000097Web sites
98---------
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +000099
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000100New Python releases and related technologies are published at
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000101http://www.python.org/. Come visit us!
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000102
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000103There's also a Python community web site at
104http://starship.python.net/.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000105
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000106
107Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
108----------------------------
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000109
110Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about
111Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup
112for Python-related announcements. These are also accessible as
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000113mailing lists: see http://www.python.org/psa/MailingLists.html for an
114overview of the many Python-related mailing lists.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000115
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000116Archives are accessible via the Google Groups usenet archive; see
117http://groups.google.com/. The mailing lists are also archived, see
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000118http://www.python.org/psa/MailingLists.html for details.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000119
120
121Bug reports
122-----------
123
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000124To report or search for bugs, please use the Python Bug
125Tracker at http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000126
127
128Patches and contributions
129-------------------------
130
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000131To submit a patch or other contribution, please use the Python Patch
132Manager at http://sourceforge.net/patch/?group_id=5470. Guidelines
133for patch submission may be found at http://www.python.org/patches/.
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000134
135If you have a proposal to change Python, it's best to submit a Python
136Enhancement Proposal (PEP) first. All current PEPs, as well as
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000137guidelines for submitting a new PEP, are list at
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000138http://python.sourceforge.net/peps/.
139
140
141Questions
142---------
143
144For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's
145best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see
146above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000147mailing list, send questions to help@python.org (a group of volunteers
148who answer questions as they can). The newsgroup is the most
149efficient way to ask public questions.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000150
Guido van Rossum901454e2000-06-29 22:28:44 +0000151
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000152Build instructions
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000153==================
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000154
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000155Before you can build Python, you must first configure it.
156Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been automated
157for Unix and Linux installations, so all you usually have to do is
158type a few commands and sit back. There are some platforms where
159things are not quite as smooth; see the platform specific notes below.
160If you want to build for multiple platforms sharing the same source
161tree, see the section on VPATH below.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000162
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000163Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your
164system configuration and creates the Makefile. (It takes a minute or
165two -- please be patient!) You may want to pass options to the
166configure script -- see the section below on configuration options and
167variables. When it's done, you are ready to run make.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000168
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000169To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory.
170If you have changed the configuration, the Makefile may have to be
171rebuilt. In this case you may have to run make again to correctly
172build your desired target. The interpreter executable is built in the
173top level directory.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000174
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000175Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000176testing and installation. If you run into trouble, see the next
177section.
178
179Previous versions of Python used a manual configuration process that
180involved editing the file Modules/Setup. While this file still exists
181and manual configuration is still supported, it is rarely needed any
182more: almost all modules are automatically built as appropriate under
183guidance of the setup.py script, which is run by Make after the
184interpreter has been built.
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000185
Guido van Rossum0a516c91994-09-12 10:58:40 +0000186
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000187Troubleshooting
188---------------
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000189
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000190See also the platform specific notes in the next section.
191
Guido van Rossum49523691997-08-15 18:30:14 +0000192If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ
Guido van Rossum901454e2000-06-29 22:28:44 +0000193(http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw.py or
Guido van Rossum49523691997-08-15 18:30:14 +0000194http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for hints on what can go wrong,
195and how to fix it.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000196
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000197If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all
198object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or
199not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable
200problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report!
201
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000202If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000203should be there, inspect the config.log file. When you fix a
204configure problem, be sure to remove config.cache!
205
206If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no
207longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000208whether this option is needed; all we can do is test whether it is
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000209accepted without error. On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it
210is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c,
211which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000). If the
212warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from
213the OPT variable.
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000214
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000215If you get failures in test_long, or sys.maxint gets set to -1, you
216are probably experiencing compiler bugs, usually related to
217optimization. This is a common problem with some versions of gcc and
218egcs, and some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be
219worked around by turning off optimization. Consider switching to
220stable versions (gcc 2.7.2.3, egcs 1.1.2, or contact your vendor.)
221
222From Python 2.0 onward, all Python C code is ANSI C. Compiling using
223old K&R-C-only compilers is no longer possible. ANSI C compilers are
224available for all modern systems, either in the form of updated
225compilers from the vendor, or one of the free compilers (gcc, egcs).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000226
227Platform specific notes
228-----------------------
229
Guido van Rossum0447a321995-10-08 01:22:33 +0000230(Some of these may no longer apply. If you find you can build Python
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000231on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here,
232submit a documentation bug report to SourceForge (see Bug Reports
233above) so we can remove them!)
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000234
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +000023564-bit platforms: The modules audioop, imageop and rgbimg don't work.
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000236 The setup.py script disables them on 64-bit installations.
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000237 Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They
238 contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000239 fix, let us know!)
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000240
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000241Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris
242 2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest
243 way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as
244 the "CC" environment variable when running the configure
245 script).
246
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000247Linux: A problem with threads and fork() was tracked down to a bug in
248 the pthreads code in glibc version 2.0.5; glibc version 2.0.7
249 solves the problem. This causes the popen2 test to fail;
250 problem and solution reported by Pablo Bleyer.
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000251
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000252 Under Linux systems using GNU libc 2 (aka libc6), the crypt
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000253 module now needs the -lcrypt option. The setup.py script
254 takes care of this automatically.
Fred Drake61280911997-12-08 14:10:40 +0000255
Guido van Rossum2dcec0c2002-02-04 01:59:23 +0000256Red Hat Linux: There's an executable /usr/bin/python which is Python
257 1.5.2 on most Red Hat installations; several key Red Hat tools
258 require this version. Python 2.1.x may be installed as
259 /usr/bin/python2. The Makefile installs Python as
260 /usr/local/bin/python, which may or may not take precedence
261 over /usr/bin/python, depending on how you have set up $PATH.
262
Guido van Rossum59230501999-06-21 20:51:46 +0000263FreeBSD 3.x and probably platforms with NCurses that use libmytinfo or
264 similar: When using cursesmodule, the linking is not done in
265 the correct order with the defaults. Remove "-ltermcap" from
266 the readline entry in Setup, and use as curses entry: "curses
267 cursesmodule.c -lmytinfo -lncurses -ltermcap" - "mytinfo" (so
268 called on FreeBSD) should be the name of the auxiliary library
269 required on your platform. Normally, it would be linked
270 automatically, but not necessarily in the correct order.
271
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000272BSDI: BSDI versions before 4.1 have known problems with threads,
273 which can cause strange errors in a number of modules (for
274 instance, the 'test_signal' test script will hang forever.)
275 Turning off threads (with --with-threads=no) or upgrading to
276 BSDI 4.1 solves this problem.
277
278DEC Unix: Run configure with --with-dec-threads, or with
279 --with-threads=no if no threads are desired (threads are on by
280 default). When using GCC, it is possible to get an internal
281 compiler error if optimization is used. This was reported for
282 GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c. Manually compile the affected
283 file without optimization to solve the problem.
Guido van Rossum8eca2c21996-02-14 18:37:46 +0000284
Guido van Rossume1cdb161999-04-10 16:04:07 +0000285DEC Ultrix: compile with GCC to avoid bugs in the native compiler,
286 and pass SHELL=/bin/sh5 to Make when installing.
287
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000288AIX: A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000289 place. See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done.
Guido van Rossum9ac9a261998-02-16 22:19:21 +0000290 (The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases
Thomas Wouters8ee06142001-02-15 11:45:29 +0000291 has been worked around by a minimal code change.) If you get
Fred Drake59518b02002-05-11 03:36:26 +0000292 errors about pthread_* functions, during compile or during
Thomas Wouters8ee06142001-02-15 11:45:29 +0000293 testing, try setting CC to a thread-safe (reentrant) compiler,
294 like "cc_r". For full C++ module support, set CC="xlC_r" (or
295 CC="xlC" without thread support).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000296
Guido van Rossum59a88f41999-04-12 18:16:09 +0000297HP-UX: Please read the file Misc/HPUX-NOTES for shared libraries.
298 When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000299 OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight,
Guido van Rossum59a88f41999-04-12 18:16:09 +0000300 this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20)
301 even though config.h defines it.
Guido van Rossum2094e041998-05-14 15:47:35 +0000302
Guido van Rossum4e1dd7d2002-04-23 13:06:07 +0000303HP PA-RISC 2.0: A recent bug report (http://www.python.org/sf/546117)
304 suggests that the C compiler in this 64-bit system has bugs
305 in the optimizer that break Python. Compiling without
306 optimization solves the problems.
307
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000308Minix: When using ack, use "CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure"!
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000309
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000310SCO: The following apply to SCO 3 only; Python builds out of the box
311 on SCO 5 (or so we've heard).
Guido van Rossuma16e2751998-04-13 20:14:05 +0000312
313 1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000314 defs. This is because all the SCO header files are broken.
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000315 Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000316 conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined.
317
318 2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt
319 stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS
320 needed be set to:
321
322 LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i'
323
Martin v. Löwis387c5472001-09-06 08:16:17 +0000324UnixWare: There are known bugs in the math library of the system, as well as
325 problems in the handling of threads (calling fork in one
326 thread may interrupt system calls in others). Therefore, test_math and
327 tests involving threads will fail until those problems are fixed.
328
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000329SunOS 4.x: When using the SunPro C compiler, you may want to use the
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000330 '-Xa' option instead of '-Xc', to enable some needed non-ANSI
331 Sunisms.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000332
Jack Jansena39ef862001-08-19 21:17:03 +0000333NeXT: Not supported anymore. Start with the MacOSX/Darwin code if you
334 want to revive it.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000335
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000336QNX: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
337 configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on
338 ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build,
Guido van Rossumd4493421998-12-22 16:37:01 +0000339 test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX:
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000340
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000341 1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \
342 ./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm=""
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000343
Fred Drake80078492000-10-26 17:13:19 +0000344 2) edit Modules/Setup to activate everything that makes sense for
345 your system... tested here at QNX with the following modules:
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000346
Guido van Rossum6fa49e21998-08-11 17:31:39 +0000347 array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath,
348 crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop,
349 _locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre,
350 posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop, rgbimg, rotor,
351 select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct,
Guido van Rossumd4493421998-12-22 16:37:01 +0000352 syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib, audioop, imageop, rgbimg
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000353
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000354 3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash
355
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000356 or, if you feel the need for speed:
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000357
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000358 make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt"
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000359
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000360 4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test
361
Guido van Rossum6fa49e21998-08-11 17:31:39 +0000362 Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I
363 think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000364
365 5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install
Guido van Rossumb7f454d1997-12-02 19:44:31 +0000366
Guido van Rossum6fa49e21998-08-11 17:31:39 +0000367 If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but
368 I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're
369 probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a
370 little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile
Neil Schemenauer73f8ab22001-01-26 22:18:55 +0000371 to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k
Guido van Rossum40d63581997-08-14 19:45:30 +0000372
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000373BeOS: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
374 See BeOS/README for notes about compiling/installing Python on
Guido van Rossum6fa49e21998-08-11 17:31:39 +0000375 BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC platform is
Guido van Rossumd4493421998-12-22 16:37:01 +0000376 supported for R3; both PowerPC and x86 are supported for R4.
Guido van Rossumec95c7b1998-08-04 17:59:56 +0000377
Michael W. Hudson33876f52002-07-31 09:55:25 +0000378Cray T3E: Mark Hadfield (m.hadfield@niwa.co.nz) writes:
379 Python can be built satisfactorily on a Cray T3E but based on
380 my experience with the NIWA T3E (2002-05-22, version 2.2.1)
381 there are a few bugs and gotchas. For more information see a
382 thread on comp.lang.python in May 2002 entitled "Building
383 Python on Cray T3E".
384
385 1) Use Cray's cc and not gcc. The latter was reported not to
386 work by Konrad Hinsen. It may work now, but it may not.
387
388 2) To set sys.platform to something sensible, pass the
389 following environment variable to the configure script:
390
391 MACHDEP=unicosmk
392
393 2) Run configure with option "--enable-unicode=ucs4".
394
395 3) The Cray T3E does not support dynamic linking, so extension
396 modules have to be built by adding (or uncommenting) lines
397 in Modules/Setup. The minimum set of modules is
398
399 posix, new, _sre, unicodedata
400
401 On NIWA's vanilla T3E system the following have also been
402 included successfully:
403
404 _codecs, _locale, _socket, _symtable, _testcapi, _weakref
405 array, binascii, cmath, cPickle, crypt, cStringIO, dbm
406 errno, fcntl, grp, math, md5, operator, parser, pcre, pwd
407 regex, rotor, select, struct, strop, syslog, termios
408 time, timing, xreadlines
409
410 4) Once the python executable and library have been built, make
411 will execute setup.py, which will attempt to build remaining
412 extensions and link them dynamically. Each of these attempts
413 will fail but should not halt the make process. This is
414 normal.
415
416 5) Running "make test" uses a lot of resources and causes
417 problems on our system. You might want to try running tests
418 singly or in small groups.
Guido van Rossum1bf0bf41997-08-20 23:50:51 +0000419
Guido van Rossum0078aaf1997-08-21 03:05:11 +0000420SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make)
421 does not check whether a command actually changed the file it
422 is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make"
423 it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much
Guido van Rossum7be8ca02001-04-14 13:09:53 +0000424 smarter "smake" utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000425 you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake
426 smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make).
Guido van Rossum0078aaf1997-08-21 03:05:11 +0000427
Guido van Rossum7be8ca02001-04-14 13:09:53 +0000428 WARNING: There are bugs in the optimizer of some versions of
429 SGI's compilers that can cause bus errors or other strange
430 behavior, especially on numerical operations. To avoid this,
431 try building with "make OPT=".
Fred Drake0b5fb2b2000-09-29 17:45:05 +0000432
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000433OS/2: If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++
434 compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory
435 and type NMAKE. Threading and sockets are supported by default
436 in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE.
437
Fred Drake36ed5602000-10-06 01:58:48 +0000438Monterey (64-bit AIX): The current Monterey C compiler (Visual Age)
439 uses the OBJECT_MODE={32|64} environment variable to set the
440 compilation mode to either 32-bit or 64-bit (32-bit mode is
441 the default). Presumably you want 64-bit compilation mode for
442 this 64-bit OS. As a result you must first set OBJECT_MODE=64
443 in your environment before configuring (./configure) or
444 building (make) Python on Monterey.
445
446Reliant UNIX: The thread support does not compile on Reliant UNIX, and
447 there is a (minor) problem in the configure script for that
448 platform as well. This should be resolved in time for a
449 future release.
Trent Mick635f6fb2000-08-23 21:33:05 +0000450
Jack Jansen61fec302002-01-04 15:59:57 +0000451Mac OS X 10: One of the regular expression tests fails with a segmentation
452 violation (SIGSEGV) due to the small stack size used by default,
453 if you give the command "limit stacksize 2048" before "make test"
454 it should work.
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000455
Jack Jansen6a77cf12001-12-06 21:49:02 +0000456 On naked Darwin you may want to add the configure option
Jack Jansen4c398fd2001-10-08 13:21:15 +0000457 "--disable-toolbox-glue" to disable the glue code for the Carbon
Jack Jansen6a77cf12001-12-06 21:49:02 +0000458 interface modules. The modules themselves are currently only built
459 if you add the --enable-framework option, see below.
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000460
461 On a clean OSX /usr/local does not exist. Do a
Jack Jansen61fec302002-01-04 15:59:57 +0000462 "sudo mkdir -m 775 /usr/local"
Jack Jansen6a77cf12001-12-06 21:49:02 +0000463 before you do a make install. Alternatively, do "sudo make install"
Jack Jansenf8197d42001-11-12 14:11:13 +0000464 which installs everything as superuser.
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000465
466 You may want to try the configure option "--enable-framework"
467 which installs Python as a framework. The location can be set
468 as argument to the --enable-framework option (default
469 /Library/Frameworks). You may also want to check out ./Mac/OSX
470 for building a Python.app. You may also want to manually
471 install a symlink in /usr/local/bin/python to the executable
472 deep down in the framework.
Fred Drakedabed752001-02-01 19:41:13 +0000473
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000474Cygwin: With recent (relative to the time of writing, 2001-12-19)
475 Cygwin installations, there are problems with the interaction
476 of dynamic linking and fork(). This manifests itself in build
477 failures during the execution of setup.py.
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000478
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000479 There are two workarounds that both enable Python (albeit
480 without threading support) to build and pass all tests on
481 NT/2000 (and most likely XP as well, though reports of testing
482 on XP would be appreciated).
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000483
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000484 The workarounds:
485
486 (a) the band-aid fix is to link the _socket module statically
487 rather than dynamically (which is the default).
488
489 To do this, run "./configure --with-threads=no" including any
490 other options you need (--prefix, etc.). Then in Modules/Setup
491 uncomment the lines:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000492
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000493 #SSL=/usr/local/ssl
494 #_socket socketmodule.c \
495 # -DUSE_SSL -I$(SSL)/include -I$(SSL)/include/openssl \
496 # -L$(SSL)/lib -lssl -lcrypto
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000497
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000498 and remove "local/" from the SSL variable. Finally, just run
499 "make"!
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000500
Michael W. Hudsonb6554642001-12-19 22:09:09 +0000501 (b) The "proper" fix is to rebase the Cygwin DLLs to prevent
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000502 base address conflicts. Details on how to do this can be
503 found in the following mail:
504
505 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html
506
507 It is hoped that a version of this solution will be
Michael W. Hudsonb6554642001-12-19 22:09:09 +0000508 incorporated into the Cygwin distribution fairly soon.
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000509
510 Two additional problems:
511
512 (1) Threading support should still be disabled due to a known
513 bug in Cygwin pthreads that causes test_threadedtempfile to
514 hang.
515
Neal Norwitz4ebde092001-12-19 20:44:13 +0000516 (2) The _curses module does not build. This is a known
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000517 Cygwin ncurses problem that should be resolved the next time
518 that this package is released.
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000519
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000520 On older versions of Cygwin, test_poll may hang and test_strftime
521 may fail.
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000522
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000523 The situation on 9X/Me is not accurately known at present.
524 Some time ago, there were reports that the following
525 regression tests failed:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000526
527 test_pwd
528 test_select (hang)
529 test_socket
530
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000531 Due to the test_select hang on 9X/Me, one should run the
532 regression test using the following:
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000533
Michael W. Hudsonbe5ce182001-12-12 11:46:52 +0000534 make TESTOPTS='-l -x test_select' test
Tim Peters42fc7cc2001-04-04 18:35:19 +0000535
Michael W. Hudson1c4523f2001-12-19 19:49:58 +0000536 News regarding these platforms with more recent Cygwin
537 versions would be appreciated!
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000538
Skip Montanaro57454e52002-06-14 20:30:31 +0000539Configuring the bsddb and dbm modules
540-------------------------------------
541
542Configuring the bsddb module can sometimes be a bit tricky. This module
543provides a Python interface to the Berkeley DB library. As of this writing
544several versions of the underlying library are in common use (versions 1.85,
5452.x, 3.x, and 4.x). The file formats across the various versions tend to be
546incompatible. Some Linux distributions install multiple versions by
547default. It is important that compatible versions of header files and
548libraries are used when building bsddb. To make matters worse, version 1.85
549of Berkeley DB has known bugs in its hash file implementation, but is still
550the most widely available version of the library. Many people build bsddb
551with version 1.85 but aren't aware of the bugs. This affects people using
552the anydbm and dbhash modules because they are both use Berkeley DB's hash
553file format as a side effect of calling bsddb.hashopen.
554
555To try and remedy this problem, beginning with Python version 2.3 a number
556of changes to the bsddb build process were made. First, and most important,
557the bsddb module will not be built with version 1.85 unless the relevant
558lines in setup.py are uncommented first and no other higher-numbered
559versions are found. Second, matching versions of the library and include
560files must be found. Third, searching is performed in order, starting from
561version 4 and proceeding to version 2 (or version 1 if it is enabled).
562Version-independent libraries and header files (e.g. /usr/lib/libdb.a and
563/usr/include/db.h) are never considered. They must be in version-specific
564directories or have version-specific filenames (e.g. /usr/lib/libdb-3.2.so
565and /usr/include/db3/db_185.h).
566
567Since the bsddb module is programmed using the Berkeley DB version 1 API,
568the underlying library must be configured with the --enable-compat185 flag.
569Most vendor-provided distributions are so-configured. This is generally
570only an issue if you build Berkeley DB from source.
571
572All this affects the dbm module as well. There are several dbm-compliant
573APIs provided by different libraries, including ndbm, gdbm and Berkeley DB.
574The build process for dbm would previously use the version 1.85 library,
575thus extending the potential hash file corruption to the dbm module as well.
576The dbm module will use the library and include files found for the bsddb
577module if neither ndbm nor gdbm libraries are found.
578
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000579Configuring threads
580-------------------
581
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000582As of Python 2.0, threads are enabled by default. If you wish to
583compile without threads, or if your thread support is broken, pass the
584--with-threads=no switch to configure. Unfortunately, on some
585platforms, additional compiler and/or linker options are required for
586threads to work properly. Below is a table of those options,
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000587collected by Bill Janssen. We would love to automate this process
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000588more, but the information below is not enough to write a patch for the
589configure.in file, so manual intervention is required. If you patch
590the configure.in file and are confident that the patch works, please
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000591send in the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure script itself
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000592-- it is regenerated each the configure.in file changes.)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000593
594Compiler switches for threads
595.............................
596
Martin v. Löwis1c24f9c2001-03-06 12:07:27 +0000597The definition of _REENTRANT should be configured automatically, if
598that does not work on your system, or if _REENTRANT is defined
599incorrectly, please report that as a bug.
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000600
Martin v. Löwis1c24f9c2001-03-06 12:07:27 +0000601 OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads
602 (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) compile & link
603
604 SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris -mt
605 SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (nothing)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000606 DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE -threads
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000607 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000608 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE -threads
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000609 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000610 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX -pthread
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000611 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000612 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000613 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000614 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000615 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000616 IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000617 (robertl@cwi.nl)
618
619
620Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads
621...........................................
622
623 OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads
624
625 SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread
626 SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000627 DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000628 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
629 Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
630 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000631 Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000632 (butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000633 AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing)
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000634 (buhrt@iquest.net)
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000635 IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread
Guido van Rossumdc8a3cb1998-05-12 15:29:18 +0000636 (jph@emilia.engr.sgi.com)
637
638
Martin v. Löwis1142de32002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000639Building a shared libpython
640---------------------------
641
642Starting with Python 2.3, the majority of the interpreter can be built
643into a shared library, which can then be used by the interpreter
644executable, and by applications embedding Python. To enable this feature,
Martin v. Löwis65069672002-08-03 21:38:27 +0000645configure with --enable-shared.
646
647If you do so, a static library will be created in addition to the
648shared library, which uses the same object files as the shared library
649In particular, the library likely object files using
650position-independent code (PIC) if PIC flags are needed for the shared
651library.
Martin v. Löwis1142de32002-03-29 16:28:31 +0000652
653
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000654Configuring additional built-in modules
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000655---------------------------------------
Guido van Rossum19e0c261995-01-17 16:36:34 +0000656
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000657Starting with Python 2.1, the setup.py script at the top of the source
658distribution attempts to detect which modules can be built and
659automatically compiles them. Autodetection doesn't always work, so
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000660you can still customize the configuration by editing the Modules/Setup
661file; but this should be considered a last resort. The rest of this
662section only applies if you decide to edit the Modules/Setup file.
663You also need this to enable static linking of certain modules (which
664is needed to enable profiling on some systems).
665
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000666This file is initially copied from Setup.dist by the configure script;
667if it does not exist yet, create it by copying Modules/Setup.dist
668yourself (configure will never overwrite it). Never edit Setup.dist
669-- always edit Setup or Setup.local (see below). Read the comments in
670the file for information on what kind of edits are allowed. When you
671have edited Setup in the Modules directory, the interpreter will
Guido van Rossumef67ded2001-10-05 17:04:42 +0000672automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make (in the toplevel
673directory).
Guido van Rossum627b2d71993-12-24 10:39:16 +0000674
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000675Many useful modules can be built on any Unix system, but some optional
676modules can't be reliably autodetected. Often the quickest way to
677determine whether a particular module works or not is to see if it
678will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get compilation or link
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000679errors, disable it -- you're either missing support or need to adjust
680the compilation and linking parameters for that module.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000681
682On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific
Andrew M. Kuchlingebe30452001-02-27 03:24:24 +0000683system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware. These
684modules will not be built by the setup.py script.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000685
Guido van Rossum4462e931997-01-22 21:00:32 +0000686In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local.
687(the makesetup script processes both). You may find it more
688convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone. Then, when
689installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local
690file.
691
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000692
693Setting the optimization/debugging options
694------------------------------------------
695
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000696If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for
697the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make
698command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python
699on most platforms. The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the
700environment when the configure script is run overrides this default
701(likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base
702set of libraries to link with).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000703
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000704When compiling with GCC, the default value of OPT will also include
705the -Wall and -Wstrict-prototypes options.
706
707Additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems can
708be enabled by using the --with-pydebug option to the configure script.
709
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000710
Guido van Rossuma68ca352001-10-04 17:00:07 +0000711Profiling
712---------
713
714If you want C profiling turned on, the easiest way is to run configure
715with the CC environment variable to the necessary compiler
716invocation. For example, on Linux, this works for profiling using
717gprof(1):
718
719 CC="gcc -pg" ./configure
720
721Note that on Linux, gprof apparently does not work for shared
722libraries. The Makefile/Setup mechanism can be used to compile and
723link most extension module statically.
724
725
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000726Testing
727-------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000728
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000729To test the interpreter, type "make test" in the top-level directory.
Guido van Rossum6ae5d3d1997-05-14 21:39:05 +0000730This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with
731the compiled files left by the previous test run). The test set
732produces some output. You can generally ignore the messages about
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000733skipped tests due to optional features which can't be imported.
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000734If a message is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core
735dump is produced, something is wrong. On some Linux systems (those
Guido van Rossum24df6841997-12-30 04:32:30 +0000736that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000737non-standard implementation of strftime() in the C library. Please
738ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000739
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000740IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report,
741*don't* include the output of "make test". It is useless. Run the
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000742failing test manually, as follows:
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000743
Andrew M. Kuchling83d042d2002-03-21 23:52:20 +0000744 ./python ./Lib/test/test_whatever.py
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000745
Andrew M. Kuchling83d042d2002-03-21 23:52:20 +0000746(substituting the top of the source tree for '.' if you built in a
Guido van Rossum6ae5d3d1997-05-14 21:39:05 +0000747different directory). This runs the test in verbose mode.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000748
749
750Installing
751----------
752
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000753To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules
754(see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page,
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000755just type
756
757 make install
758
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000759This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories of
760the directory given with the --prefix option to configure or to the
761`prefix' Make variable (default /usr/local). All binary and other
762platform-specific files will be installed in subdirectories if the
763directory given by --exec-prefix or the `exec_prefix' Make variable
764(defaults to the --prefix directory) is given.
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000765
766All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their
767name, e.g. the library modules are installed in
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000768"/usr/local/lib/python<version>/" by default, where <version> is the
769<major>.<minor> release number (e.g. "2.1"). The Python binary is
770installed as "python<version>" and a hard link named "python" is
771created. The only file not installed with a version number in its
772name is the manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1"
773by default.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000774
Neil Schemenauer0e91dc72001-02-16 04:18:08 +0000775If you have a previous installation of Python that you don't
Guido van Rossum64773801997-11-26 17:07:02 +0000776want to replace yet, use
777
778 make altinstall
779
780This installs the same set of files as "make install" except it
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000781doesn't create the hard link to "python<version>" named "python" and
782it doesn't install the manual page at all.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000783
Neil Schemenauer0e91dc72001-02-16 04:18:08 +0000784Alpha/beta revision levels are stripped from the executable and
785library filenames during installation. For example, Python2.1a2 will
786install as python2.1, overwriting the previous python2.1. To avoid
787this, you could set the Makefile VERSION variable manually
788(e.g. VERSION=2.1a2) before running "make install" or "make altinstall".
789
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000790The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000791Emacs found in Misc/python-mode.el. (But then again, more recent
792versions of Emacs may already have it.) Follow the instructions that
793came with Emacs for installation of site-specific files.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000794
Jack Jansena39ef862001-08-19 21:17:03 +0000795On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework, you
796should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation. Note that this
797installs the Python executable in a place that is not normally on your
798PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in /usr/local/bin.
799
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000800
801Configuration options and variables
802-----------------------------------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000803
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000804Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure
805script.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000806
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000807WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you
808must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule:
809after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove
Guido van Rossumb06df271997-08-05 21:50:20 +0000810Modules/getpath.o.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000811
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000812--with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if
813 it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is
814 installed but broken on your platform, pass the option
815 --without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the
816 name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the
817 advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is
818 remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck
819 option.
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +0000820
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000821--prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the
822 Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib},
823 you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter
824 binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the
825 library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass
826 --exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the
827 installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the
828 interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also
829 affects the default module search path (sys.path), when
830 Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option
831 prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the
832 prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient
833 than re-running the configure script if you change your mind
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000834 about the install prefix.
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +0000835
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000836--with-readline: This option is no longer supported. GNU
837 readline is automatically enabled by setup.py when present.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000838
Guido van Rossum7ac11532000-08-29 21:36:40 +0000839--with-threads: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple
840 threads, and support for this is enabled by default. To
841 disable this, pass --with-threads=no. If the library required
842 for threads lives in a peculiar place, you can use
843 --with-thread=DIRECTORY. IMPORTANT: run "make clean" after
844 changing (either enabling or disabling) this option, or you
845 will get link errors! Note: for DEC Unix use
Guido van Rossum0e13da91998-02-22 04:36:34 +0000846 --with-dec-threads instead.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000847
848--with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is
849 supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000850 ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z.
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000851 This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000852 library) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000853 is the absolute pathname of the dl library. (Don't bother on
854 IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style
855 shared libraries.) Support for this feature is deprecated.
856
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000857--with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumored to be supported
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000858 on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent
859 Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST. This is done using a
860 combination of the GNU dynamic loading package
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000861 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000862 emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation
863 can be found at
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000864 ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z). To
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000865 enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000866 configure, passing it the option
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000867 --with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is
868 the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and
869 DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library.
870 (Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic
871 linking using shared libraries.) Support for this feature is
872 deprecated.
873
874--with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative
875 versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library
876 (default the empty string) using the options
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000877 --with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. For
878 example, if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C
879 compiler to use the shared C library, you can pass
880 --with-libc=-lc_s. These libraries are passed after all other
881 libraries, the C library last.
Guido van Rossum16e809e2001-04-16 02:07:08 +0000882
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000883--with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python interpreter
884 is linked against.
Guido van Rossumd02ba451996-07-31 17:36:01 +0000885
Martin v. Löwis2df66942000-12-13 14:14:32 +0000886--with-cxx=<compiler>: Some C++ compilers require that main() is
887 compiled with the C++ if there is any C++ code in the application.
888 Specifically, g++ on a.out systems may require that to support
889 construction of global objects. With this option, the main() function
890 of Python will be compiled with <compiler>; use that only if you
891 plan to use C++ extension modules, and if your compiler requires
892 compilation of main() as a C++ program.
893
894
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000895--with-pydebug: Enable additional debugging code to help track down
896 memory management problems. This allows printing a list of all
897 live objects when the interpreter terminates.
Jack Jansen7b8c7542002-04-14 20:12:41 +0000898
899--with(out)-universal-newlines: enable reading of text files with
900 foreign newline convention (default: enabled). In other words,
901 any of \r, \n or \r\n is acceptable as end-of-line character.
902 If enabled import and execfile will automatically accept any newline
903 in files. Python code can open a file with open(file, 'U') to
904 read it in universal newline mode.
Fred Drake6caae142000-10-25 17:51:02 +0000905
Guido van Rossum76be6ed1995-01-02 18:33:54 +0000906
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000907Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature)
908-------------------------------------------------------------
909
910If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it
911usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each
912architecture you want to support. If the make program supports the
913VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each
914architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the
915appropriate machine with the appropriate options). This creates the
916necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein. The Makefiles
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000917contain a line VPATH=... which points to a directory containing the
Guido van Rossumd0fe8451996-08-26 03:02:37 +0000918actual sources. (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if
919you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.)
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000920
921For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python
922in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel
923directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python):
924
925 $ mkdir /usr/tmp/python
926 $ cd /usr/tmp/python
927 $ ~guido/src/python/configure
928 [...]
929 $ make
930 [...]
931 $
932
Neil Schemenauer73f8ab22001-01-26 22:18:55 +0000933Note that configure copies the original Setup file to the build
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000934directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can
935edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this
936reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked
937automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy
938of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The
939makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be
940fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it
941doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local;
942however this assumes that you only need to add modules.)
943
944
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000945Building on non-UNIX systems
946----------------------------
947
Tim Peters03444242000-09-19 00:38:35 +0000948For Windows (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 6.0, the
949project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw. See
950PCbuild\readme.txt for detailed instructions.
Guido van Rossum8d7d4ed1996-07-30 21:41:07 +0000951
Guido van Rossum31ae2071999-04-12 14:47:30 +0000952For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular Windows 3.1 and
953for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt".
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000954
955For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available,
956for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac
957development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group
958(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to
959pythonmac-sig-request@python.org).
960
961Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000962platforms -- see http://www.python.org/.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +0000963
964To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the
965effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this
966has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000967pyconfig.h.in to pyconfig.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000968configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as
9691 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +0000970otherwise; however the *_t type symbols must be defined as some
971variant of int if they need to be defined at all.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000972
Barry Warsaw06557452001-12-14 20:47:12 +0000973For all platforms, it's important that the build arrange to define the
974preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the compiler command line in a release
975build of Python (else assert() calls remain in the code, hurting
976release-build performance). The Unix, Windows and Mac builds already
977do this.
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +0000978
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000979
980Miscellaneous issues
981====================
982
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000983Emacs mode
984----------
985
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +0000986There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file
987Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +0000988is now maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw (it's no
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000989coincidence that they now both work on the same team). The latest
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000990version, along with various other contributed Python-related Emacs
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000991goodies, is online at http://www.python.org/emacs/python-mode. And
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000992if you are planning to edit the Python C code, please pick up the
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +0000993latest version of CC Mode http://www.python.org/emacs/cc-mode; it
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +0000994contains a "python" style used throughout most of the Python C source
995files. (Newer versions of Emacs or XEmacs may already come with the
996latest version of python-mode.)
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +0000997
998
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +0000999Tkinter
1000-------
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001001
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001002The setup.py script automatically configures this when it detects a
1003usable Tcl/Tk installation. This requires Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or
Fred Drake8179a9d2000-09-28 23:28:30 +00001004higher.
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001005
Guido van Rossum973e4dc2000-07-01 00:34:39 +00001006For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page:
1007http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001008
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001009There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory, in the subdirectories
1010guido, matt and www (the matt and guido subdirectories have been
1011overhauled to use more recent Tkinter coding conventions).
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001012
1013Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001014lives in Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter"
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001015(lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001016Modules/_tkinter.c. Demos and normal Tk applications import only the
Guido van Rossum59b0b602002-02-08 22:22:35 +00001017Python Tkinter module -- only the latter imports the C _tkinter
1018module. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled
1019and linked into the Python interpreter -- the setup.py script does
1020this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module, sys.path must be
1021set correctly -- normal installation takes care of this.
Guido van Rossum84c8c7f1995-08-28 02:44:24 +00001022
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001023
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001024Distribution structure
1025----------------------
1026
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001027Most subdirectories have their own README files. Most files have
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001028comments.
1029
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001030.cvsignore Additional filename matching patterns for CVS to ignore
1031BeOS/ Files specific to the BeOS port
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001032Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001033Doc/ Documentation sources (LaTeX)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001034Grammar/ Input for the parser generator
1035Include/ Public header files
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001036LICENSE Licensing information
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001037Lib/ Python library modules
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001038Mac/ Macintosh specific resources
Neil Schemenauer3f52da52001-01-24 17:49:59 +00001039Makefile.pre.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile.pre
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001040Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001041Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules
1042Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001043PC/ Files specific to PC ports (DOS, Windows, OS/2)
1044PCbuild/ Build directory for Microsoft Visual C++
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001045Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001046Python/ The byte-compiler and interpreter
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001047README The file you're reading now
1048Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001049pyconfig.h.in Source from which pyconfig.h is created (GNU autoheader output)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001050configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output)
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001051configure.in Configuration specification (input for GNU autoconf)
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001052install-sh Shell script used to install files
Guido van Rossum91cb9d21995-04-10 11:47:38 +00001053
1054The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by
1055the configuration and build processes:
1056
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001057Makefile Build rules
Neil Schemenauer3f52da52001-01-24 17:49:59 +00001058Makefile.pre Build rules before running Modules/makesetup
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001059buildno Keeps track of the build number
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001060config.cache Cache of configuration variables
Michael W. Hudsonbe6e0f42002-06-23 16:29:36 +00001061pyconfig.h Configuration header
Guido van Rossumc0be2f51997-10-08 05:05:28 +00001062config.log Log from last configure run
Guido van Rossum4f40c2d2000-09-05 16:46:22 +00001063config.status Status from last run of the configure script
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001064getbuildinfo.o Object file from Modules/getbuildinfo.c
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001065libpython<version>.a The library archive
Guido van Rossum6d9cc801996-08-01 17:31:22 +00001066python The executable interpreter
1067tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001068
1069
Guido van Rossumc07d5fa2000-09-01 22:50:02 +00001070That's all, folks!
1071------------------
Guido van Rossum433c8ad1994-08-01 12:07:07 +00001072
1073
Guido van Rossum67345eb2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00001074--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)