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Guido van Rossum 67345eb03f Updated for 2.1; removed references to BeOpen.com and PythonLabs. 
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2001-01-18 14:51:12 +00:00

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This is Python version 2.1
==========================
Copyright (c) 2000, 2001 Guido van Rossum.
All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2000 BeOpen.com.
All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 1995-2000 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". The section
`Build Instructions' below is still recommended reading, especially
the part on customizing Modules/Setup.
What is Python anyway?
----------------------
Python is an interpreted 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://www.python.org/doc/ 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://www.python.org/psa/bookstore/ 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://www.python.org/doc/, 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.
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/psa/MailingLists.html for an
overview of the many Python-related mailing lists.
Archives are accessible via Deja.com Usenet News: see
http://www.deja.com/usenet. The mailing lists are also archived, see
http://www.python.org/psa/MailingLists.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 list at
http://python.sourceforge.net/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 streamlined for most Unix
installations, so all you have to do is type a few commands,
optionally edit one file, and sit back. There are some platforms
where things are not quite as smooth; see the platform specific notes
below. If you want to build for multiple platforms sharing the same
source tree, see the section on VPATH below.
Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your
system configuration and creates several Makefiles. (It takes a
minute or two -- please be patient!) You may want to pass options to
the configure script or edit the Modules/Setup file after running
configure -- 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.
This will recursively run make in each of the subdirectories: Grammar,
Parser, Objects, Python and Modules, creating a library file in each
one (except Grammar). The interpreter executable is built in the top
level directory. If you want or need to, you can also chdir into each
subdirectory in turn and run make there manually (do the Modules
subdirectory last; you must use "make all sharedmods" to build the
dynamically loadable modules, if you have any).
Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on
testing, configuring additional modules, and installation. If you run
into trouble, see the next section. Editing the Modules/Setup file
after running make is supported; just run "make" again after making
the desired changes.
Troubleshooting
---------------
See also the platform specific notes in the next section.
If recursive makes fail, try invoking make as "make MAKE=make".
If you run into other trouble, see section 3 of the FAQ
(http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw.py or
http://www.python.org/doc/FAQ.html) for hints on what can go wrong,
and how to fix it.
If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all
object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or
not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable
problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report!
If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that
should be there, inspect the config.log file. When you fix a
configure problem, be sure to remove config.cache!
If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no
longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know
whether this option is needed; all 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
egcs, and some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be
worked around by turning off optimization. Consider switching to
stable versions (gcc 2.7.2.3, egcs 1.1.2, 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, egcs).
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!)
64-bit platforms: The modules audioop, imageop and rgbimg don't work.
Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They
contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a
fix, let 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).
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.
Under Linux systems using GNU libc 2 (aka libc6), the crypt
module now needs the -lcrypt option. Uncomment this flag in
Modules/Setup, or comment out the crypt module in the same
file. Most modern Linux systems use glibc2.
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.)
In addition, Gary Duzan has a hint for C++ users: to enable
full C++ module support, set CC="xlC" (or CC="xlC_r" for thread
support in AIX 4.2.1).
HP-UX: Please read the file Misc/HPUX-NOTES for shared libraries.
When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the
OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight,
this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20)
even though config.h defines it.
Minix: When using ack, use "CC=cc AR=aal RANLIB=: ./configure"!
SCO: The following 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'
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.
NeXT: To build fat binaries, use the --with-next-archs switch
described below.
QNX: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on
ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build,
test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX:
1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \
./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm=""
2) edit Modules/Setup to activate everything that makes sense for
your system... tested here at QNX with the following modules:
array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath,
crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop,
_locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre,
posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop, rgbimg, rotor,
select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct,
syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib, audioop, imageop, rgbimg
3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash
or, if you feel the need for speed:
make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt"
4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test
Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I
think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\
5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install
If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but
I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're
probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a
little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile
in the Modules directory to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k
BeOS: Chris Herborth (chrish@qnx.com) writes:
See BeOS/README for notes about compiling/installing Python on
BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC platform is
supported for R3; both PowerPC and x86 are supported for R4.
Cray T3E: Konrad Hinsen writes:
1) Don't use gcc. It compiles Python/graminit.c into something
that the Cray assembler doesn't like. Cray's cc seems to work
fine.
2) Comment out modules md5 (won't compile) and audioop (will
crash the interpreter during the test suite).
If you run the test suite, two tests will fail (rotate and
binascii), but these are not the modules you'd expect to need
on a Cray.
SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make)
does not check whether a command actually changed the file it
is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make"
it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much
smarter "smake " utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If
you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake
smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make).
There is a bug in the SGI compiler's optimization that causes a
bus error in PyComplex_ImagAsDouble(); this has been reported to
be triggered when importing Numeric Python and may be caused at
other times. The work-around is to build Python, delete the
Objects/complexobject.o file, and then recompile without
optimization (use "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.
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 the configure.in file changes.)
Compiler switches for threads
.............................
OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads
(POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) (1) compile only (2) compile & link
SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -mt
SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT
DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -threads
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX (1) -D_REENTRANT (2) -pthread
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing)
(buhrt@iquest.net)
AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing)
(buhrt@iquest.net)
IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing)
(robertl@cwi.nl)
Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads
...........................................
OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads
SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread
SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread
DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc
(butenhof@zko.dec.com)
AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing)
(buhrt@iquest.net)
IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread
(jph@emilia.engr.sgi.com)
Configuring additional built-in modules
---------------------------------------
You can configure the interpreter to contain fewer or more built-in
modules by editing the Modules/Setup file. 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. (When
working inside the Modules directory, use "make Makefile; make".)
The default collection of modules should build on any Unix system, but
many optional modules should work on all modern Unices (e.g. try
audioop, imageop, crypt, dbm, gdbm, nis, resource, termios, timing,
syslog, _curses, pyexpat, readline, rgbimg, zlib). 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.
For SunOS and Solaris, enable module "sunaudiodev" to support the
audio device. Likewise, for Linux and some *BSD systems, enable
"linuxaudiodev".
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.
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
you want to test those modules, edit Modules/Setup to configure them.)
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.
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 a pre-2.0 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.
Configuration options and variables
-----------------------------------
Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure
script.
WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you
must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule:
after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove
Modules/getpath.o.
--with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if
it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is
installed but broken on your platform, pass the option
--without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the
name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the
advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is
remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck
option.
--prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the
Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib},
you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter
binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the
library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass
--exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the
installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the
interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also
affects the default module search path (sys.path), when
Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option
prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the
prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient
than re-running the configure script if you change your mind
about the install prefix.
--with-readline: This option is no longer supported. To use GNU
readline, enable module "readline" in the Modules/Setup file.
--with-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.) Support for this feature is deprecated.
--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.) Support for this feature is
deprecated.
--with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative
versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library
(default the empty string) using the options
--with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. 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-next-archs='arch1 arch2': Under NEXTSTEP, this will build
all compiled binaries with the architectures listed. This will
also correctly set the target architecture-specific resource
directory. (This option is not supported on other platforms.)
--with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python 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.
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 Modules/Makefile copies the original Setup file to the build
directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can
edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this
reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked
automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy
of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The
makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be
fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it
doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local;
however this assumes that you only need to add modules.)
Building on non-UNIX systems
----------------------------
For Windows (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 6.0, 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 Windows 3.1 and
for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt".
For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available,
for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac
development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group
(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to
pythonmac-sig-request@python.org).
Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these
platforms -- see http://www.python.org/.
To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the
effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this
has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file
config.h.in to config.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual
configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as
1 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone
otherwise; however the *_t type symbols must be defined as some variant
of int if they need to be defined at all.
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.)
The Tk interface
----------------
Tk (the user interface component of John Ousterhout's Tcl language) is
also usable from Python. Since this requires that you first build and
install Tcl/Tk, the Tk interface is not enabled by default when
building Python from source. Python supports Tcl/Tk version 8.0 and
higher.
See http://dev.ajubasolutions.com/ for more info on Tcl/Tk, including
the on-line manual pages.
To enable the Python/Tk interface, once you've built and installed
Tcl/Tk, load the file Modules/Setup into your favorite text editor and
search for the string "_tkinter". Then follow the instructions found
there. If you have installed Tcl/Tk or X11 in unusual places, you
will have to edit the first line to fix or add the -I and -L options.
(Also see the general instructions at the top of that file.)
For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page:
http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/
There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory, in the subdirectories
guido, matt and www (the matt and guido subdirectories have been
overhauled to use more recent Tkinter coding conventions).
Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which
lives in Lib/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 -- the latter uses the C _tkinter module
directly. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled
and linked into the Python interpreter -- the _tkinter line in the
Setup file does this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module,
sys.path must be set correctly -- the TKPATH assignment in the Setup
file takes care of this, but only if you install Python properly
("make install libinstall"). (You can also use dynamic loading for
the C _tkinter module, in which case you must manually fix up sys.path
or set $PYTHONPATH for the Python Tkinter module.)
Distribution structure
----------------------
Most subdirectories have their own README 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
Makefile.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile
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
acconfig.h Additional input for the GNU autoheader program
config.h.in Source from which config.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
buildno Keeps track of the build number
config.cache Cache of configuration variables
config.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/)
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