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[wxWidgets.git] / utils / wxPython / BUILD.txt

Build Instructions
------------------
I used SWIG (http://www.swig.org) to create the source code for the
extension module.  This enabled me to only have to deal with a small
amount of code and only have to bother with the exceptional issues.
SWIG takes care of the rest and generates all the repetative code for
me.  You don't need SWIG to build the extension module as all the
generated C++ code is included under the src directory.

I added a few minor features to SWIG to control some of the code
generation.  If you want to play around with this you will need to get
a recent version of SWIG from their CVS or from a daily build.  See
http://www.swig.org/ for details.

wxPython is organized as a Python package.  This means that the
directory containing the results of the build process should be a
subdirectory of a directory on the PYTHONPATH.  (And preferably should
be named wxPython.)  You can control where the build process will dump
wxPython by setting the TARGETDIR variable for the build utility, (see
below.)


1. Build and install wxWindows as described in its BuildCVS.txt or
   INSTALL.txt file.

1a. Building wxWindows on Unix/Linux.

   For *nix systems I run configure with these flags:

                --with-gtk
                --with-libjpeg
                --without-odbc
                --enable-unicode=no
                --enable-threads=yes
                --enable-socket=yes
                --enable-static=no
                --enable-shared=yes
                --disable-std_iostreams

   You can use whatever flags you want, but these work for me.  Be
   sure to run "make install" to install the wxWindows headers and
   shared library.  You can check where the wxPython build will expect
   to find them by running "wx-config --cflags" and "wx-config --libs"

1b. Building wxWindows on Win32.

   For Win32 systems I use Visual C++ 6.0, but 5.0 should work.  The
   wxPython build utility currently does not support any other win32
   compilers.  Be sure to copy include/wx/msw/setup0.h to
   include/wx/msw/setup.h and edit it for the options you want.  At a
   minimum you should set the following:

	   wxUSE_NEW_GRID		    0
	   wxUSE_GLOBAL_MEMORY_OPERATORS    0
	   wxUSE_LIBTIFF		    1

   I also change these:

	   wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER		    0
	   wxUSE_SOCKETS		    0
	   wxUSE_FS_INET		    0

   There are probably other flags that can be disabled to remove
   things not being used in wxPython, but I havn't investigated all
   the potential configurations yet.

   I find it easiest to build wxWindows using the makefiles, that way
   I don't have to worry about what the IDE might be doing behind the
   scenes that might screw things up.  Simply go to the src/msw
   directory and run:

   nmake -f makefile.vc CRTFLAG=/MD EXTRAFLAGS=-D__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ dll pch

   If you want to make a release build, add FINAL=1 to the nmake
   command, as well as to build.local for wxPython, (see below.)


2. For either platform, you should be sure to set an environment
   variable named WXWIN to be the path to the top of the wxWindows
   tree.


3. If you are working from a copy of the code retrieved from CVS, then
   you will find wxPython in $WXWIN/utils/wxPython.  If you are
   working from the tar.gz or .zip files then you will probably want
   to unpack wxPython in the $WXWIN/utils directory and rename the new
   directory to wxPython (or use a symlink.)  If you want to keep it
   in a separate directory then you can change where the build.py tool
   expects to find it by creating a file named build.local (see step 7
   for more examples about build.local,) containing something like
   this:

   WXPSRCDIR = "~/MyStuff/wxPython-2.1.11/src"


4. At this point you may want to make an alias or symlink, script,
   batch file, or whatever on the PATH that invokes
   $WXWIN/utils/wxPython/distrib/build.py to help simplify matters
   somewhat.  For example, on my win32 system I have a file named
   build.bat in a directory on the PATH that contains:

   python %WXWIN%/utils/wxPython/distrib/build.py %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6


5. Change into the $(WXWIN)/utils/wxPython/src directory.


6. If you don't use SWIG, or have a new enough version installed, you
   may have to update the timestamps of the files it generates so the
   make utility won't think they are out of date and try to run SWIG
   to update them.  The standard touch utility can do this for you:

   touch gtk/*.cpp gtk/*.py


7. Type "build -b" to build wxPython and "build -i" to install it.

   The build.py script actually generates a Makefile based on what it
   finds on your system and information found in the build.cfg file.
   If you have troubles building or you want it built or installed in
   a different way, take a look at the docstring in build.py.  You may
   be able to override configuration options in a file named
   build.local.  For example, you can set a new TARGETDIR (the
   installation directory) just by creating a file named build.local
   in your wxPython source directory and assign a value to it, like
   this:

   TARGETDIR = "/usr/local/lib/python1.5/site-packages/wxPython"

   The build.local file is executed as Python code so you can do very
   creative things there if you need to.


8. To build and install the add-on modules, change to the appropriate
   directory under $WXWIN/utils/wxPython/modules and run the build
   utility again.


9. Change to the $WXWIN/utils/wxPython/demo directory.


10. Try executing the demo program.  For example:

    python demo.py

    To run it without requiring a console on win32, you can use the
    pythonw.exe version of Python either from the command line or from
    a shortcut.