wxPython/docs/BUILD.txt

   1 Building wxPython 2.5 for Development and Testing
   2 =================================================
   3
   4 This file describes how I build wxWidgets and wxPython while doing
   5 development and testing, and is meant to help other people that want
   6 to do the same thing.  I'll assume that you are using either a CVS
   7 snapshot from http://wxWidgets.org/snapshots/, a checkout from CVS, or
   8 one of the released wxPython-src-2.5.* tarballs.  I'll also assume that
   9 you know your way around your system, the compiler, etc. and most
  10 importantly, that you know what you are doing!  ;-)
  11
  12 If you want to also install the version of wxPython you build to be in
  13 your site-packages dir and be your default version of wxPython, then a
  14 few additional steps are needed, and you may want to use slightly
  15 different options.  See the INSTALL_ document for more details.  If
  16 you only use the instructions in this BUILD_ document file then you
  17 will end up with a separate installation of wxPython and you can
  18 switch back and forth between this and the release version that you
  19 may already have installed.
  20
  21 .. _INSTALL: INSTALL.html
  22 .. _BUILD: BUILD.html
  23
  24 If you want to make changes to any of the ``*.i`` files, (SWIG
  25 interface definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or
  26 renamer modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG,
  27 plus some patches.  Get the sources for version 1.3.22, and then apply
  28 the patches in wxPython/SWIG and then build SWIG like normal.  See the
  29 README.txt in the wxPython/SWIG dir for details about each patch and
  30 also info about those that may already have been applied to the SWIG
  31 sources.  If you install this build of SWIG to a location that is not
  32 on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere with an existing SWIG install for
  33 example) then you can set a setup.py command-line variable named SWIG
  34 to be the full path name of the executable and the wxPython build will
  35 use it.  See below for an example.
  36
  37 In the text below I'll use WXDIR with environment variable syntax
  38 (either $WXDIR or %WXDIR%) to refer to the top level directory where
  39 your wxWidgerts and wxPython sources are located.  It will equate to
  40 whereever you checked out the wxWidgets module from CVS, or untarred
  41 the wxPython-src tarball to.  You can either substitute the $WXDIR text
  42 below with your actual dir, or set the value in the environment and
  43 use it just like you see it below.
  44
  45 If you run into what appears to be compatibility issues between
  46 wxWidgets and wxPython while building wxPython, be sure you are using
  47 the wxWidgets sources included with the wxPython-src tarball or the
  48 CVS snapshot, and not a previously installed version or a version
  49 installed from one of the standard wxWidgets installers.  With the
  50 "unstable" releases (have a odd-numbered minor release value, where
  51 the APIs are allowed to change) there are often significant
  52 differences between the W.X.Y release of wxWidgets and the W.X.Y.Z
  53 release of wxPython.
  54
  55
  56
  57 Building on Unix-like Systems (e.g. Linux and OS X)
  58 ---------------------------------------------------
  59
  60 These platforms are built almost the same way while in development
  61 so I'll combine the descriptions about their build process here.
  62 First we will build wxWidgets and install it to an out of the way
  63 place, then do the same for wxPython.
  64
  65
  66 1. Create a build directory in the main wxWidgets dir, and configure
  67    wxWidgets.  If you want to have multiple builds with different
  68    configure options, just use different subdirectories.  I normally
  69    put the configure command in a script named ".configure" in each
  70    build dir so I can easily blow away everything in the build dir and
  71    rerun the script without having to remember the options I used
  72    before::
  73
  74          cd $WXDIR
  75          mkdir bld
  76          cd bld
  77          ../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.5 \
  78                       --with-gtk \
  79                       --with-opengl \
  80                       --enable-debug \
  81                       --enable-geometry \
  82                       --enable-sound --with-sdl \
  83                       --enable-display \
  84
  85
  86    On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
  87    --with-gtk.
  88
  89    **NOTE**: Due to a recent change there is currently a dependency
  90    problem in the multilib builds of wxWidgets on OSX, so I have
  91    switched to using a monolithic build.  That means that all of the
  92    core wxWidgets code is placed in in one shared library instead of
  93    several.  wxPython can be used with either mode, so use whatever
  94    suits you on Linux and etc. but use monolithic on OSX.  To switch
  95    to the monolithic build of wxWidgets just add this configure flag::
  96
  97                      --enable-monolithic \
  98
  99    By default GTK2 will be selected if its development pacakge is
 100    installed on your build system.  To force the use of GTK 1.2.x
 101    instead add this flag::
 102
 103                       --disable-gtk2 \
 104
 105    To make the wxWidgets build be unicode enabled (strongly
 106    recommended if you are building with GTK2) then add the following.
 107    When wxPython is unicode enabled then all strings that are passed
 108    to wx functions and methods will first be converted to unicode
 109    objects, and any 'strings' returned from wx functions and methods
 110    will actually be unicode objects.::
 111
 112                       --enable-unicode \
 113
 114    Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.5.  You can use whatever
 115    path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
 116    standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
 117    using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
 118    of wxWidgets "installed" and makes it easy to switch between them,
 119    without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been
 120    installed via an RPM or whatever.  For the rest of the steps below
 121    be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.5" with whatever prefix you
 122    choose for your build.
 123
 124    If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
 125    wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for
 126    example, to reduce dependencies on 3rd party libraries) then you
 127    can add these flags to the configure command::
 128
 129                      --with-libjpeg=builtin \
 130                      --with-libpng=builtin \
 131                      --with-libtiff=builtin \
 132                      --with-zlib=builtin \
 133
 134
 135 2. To build and install wxWidgets you could just use the "make"
 136    command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets
 137    libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
 138    all for me so I don't forget anything.  This time it is called
 139    ".make" (I use the leading "."  so when I do ``rm -r *`` in my build
 140    dir I don't lose my scripts too.)  This is what it looks like::
 141
 142         make $* \
 143             && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
 144             && make -C contrib/src/ogl CXXFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0" $* \
 145             && make -C contrib/src/stc $*
 146
 147    So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
 148    the execute bit on .make first!::
 149
 150          .make
 151          .make install
 152
 153    When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
 154    /opt/wx/2.5 containing just wxWidgets.  Now to use this version of
 155    wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/2.5/bin to the PATH and set
 156    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.5/lib.
 157
 158
 159 3. I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
 160    to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but you probably don't want to
 161    use it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG,
 162    so if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then
 163    you'll probably get stuck.  So I'll just give the raw commands
 164    instead.
 165
 166    We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
 167    these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
 168    of the latest release.  You'll be able test with this version when
 169    you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
 170    time.  If you want to install the development version please read
 171    INSTALL.txt.
 172
 173    If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
 174    sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
 175    wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below.  I'll be
 176    using python2.3.
 177
 178    Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
 179    installed above, and then change to the $WXDIR/wxPython dir and
 180    run the this command::
 181
 182          cd $WXDIR/wxPython
 183          python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
 184
 185    If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
 186    other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
 187    command line to ensure your new one is used instead::
 188
 189          WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.5/bin/wx-config
 190
 191    By default setup.py will assume that you built wxWidgets to use
 192    GTK2.  If you built wxWidgets to use GTK 1.2.x then you should add
 193    this flag to the command-line::
 194
 195          WXPORT=gtk
 196
 197    If you would like to do a Unicode enabled build (all strings sent
 198    to or retruned from wx functions are Unicode objects) and your
 199    wxWidgets was built with unicode enabled then add this flag::
 200
 201          UNICODE=1
 202
 203    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 204    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 205    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 206
 207          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
 208
 209    If you get errors about being unable to find libGLU, wxGLCanvas
 210    being undeclared, or something similar then you can add
 211    BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 to the setup.py command line to disable the
 212    building of the glcanvas module.
 213
 214    When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
 215    wxPython and wx packages locally in $WXDIR/wxPython/wxPython and
 216    $WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (``*.so`` files)
 217    located in the wx package.
 218
 219
 220 4. To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
 221    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir located in the source tree.  For
 222    example::
 223
 224         export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/2.5/lib
 225         export PYTHONPATH=$WXDIR/wxPython
 226         cd $WXDIR/wxPython/demo
 227         python2.3 demo.py
 228
 229    OS X NOTE: You need to use "pythonw" on the command line to run
 230    wxPython applications.  This version of the Python executable is
 231    part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
 232    display.  You can also double click on a .py or a .pyw file from
 233    the finder (assuming that the PythonLauncher app is associated with
 234    these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
 235    Python for you.  For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
 236    of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
 237
 238    SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
 239    wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
 240    you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
 241    code in setup.py and building again.  Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
 242    and uncomment the block containing it.  The problem is that Sun's ld
 243    does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
 244
 245
 246
 247
 248 Building on Windows
 249 -------------------
 250
 251 The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
 252 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
 253 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
 254 happen.  If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
 255 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
 256 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
 257 to accommodate that.  (And send the patches to me.)  If you plan on
 258 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC 7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
 259 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
 260 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime library is
 261 used.  The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
 262 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC 6 with all
 263 the Service Packs applied.  This policy will change with Python 2.4
 264 and MSVC 7.1 will be used starting with that version.
 265
 266 If you want to build a debuggable version of wxWidgets and wxPython you
 267 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
 268 extension modules you need to use.  You can tell if you have them
 269 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
 270 or python23_d.dll.  If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
 271 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
 272 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
 273 it.
 274
 275 Starting with 2.5.3.0 wxPython can be built for either the monlithic
 276 or the multi-lib wxWidgets builds.  (Monolithic means that all the
 277 core wxWidgets code is in one DLL, and multi-lib means that the core
 278 code is divided into multiple DLLs.)  To select which one to use
 279 specify the MONOLITHIC flag for both the wxWidgets build and the
 280 wxPython build as shown below, setting it to either 0 or 1.
 281
 282 Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
 283 wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it.  So if you have
 284 bash (cygwin or probably MSYS too) or 4NT plus unix-like cat and sed
 285 programs then there is a copy of my wxWidgets build scripts in
 286 %WXDIR%\\wxPython\\distrib\\msw.  Just copy them to
 287 %WXDIR%\\build\\msw and you can use them to do your build, otherwise
 288 you can do everything by hand as described below.  But if you do work
 289 by hand and something doesn't seem to be working correctly please
 290 refer to the build scripts to see what may need to be done
 291 differently.
 292
 293 The \*.btm files are for 4NT and the others are for bash.  They are::
 294
 295    .make/.make.btm        Builds the main lib and the needed contribs
 296    .mymake/.mymake.btm    Builds just one lib, use by .make
 297    .makesetup.mk          A makefile that will copy and edit setup.h
 298                           as needed for the different types of builds
 299
 300 Okay.  Here's what you've been waiting for, the instructions!  Adapt
 301 accordingly if you are using the bash shell.
 302
 303 1. Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWidgets source
 304    tree.  This is used by the makefiles::
 305
 306          set WXWIN=%WXDIR%
 307
 308 2. Copy setup0.h to setup.h::
 309
 310          cd %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw
 311          copy setup0.h setup.h
 312
 313
 314 3. Edit %WXDIR%\\include\\wx\\msw\\setup.h and change a few settings::
 315
 316          wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY    0
 317          wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT            1
 318          wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING           1
 319          wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER           0
 320          wxUSE_GLCANVAS                 1
 321          wxUSE_POSTSCRIPT               1
 322          wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT       0
 323          wxUSE_DISPLAY                  1
 324
 325    If you are using my build scripts then a few more settings will be
 326    changed and then a copy of setup.h is placed in a subdir of
 327    %WXWIN%\\lib\vc_dll.  If you are doing it by hand and making a
 328    UNICODE build, then also change these::
 329
 330          wxUSE_UNICODE                  1
 331          wxUSE_UNICODE_MSLU             1
 332
 333    If you are doing a "hybrid" build (which is the same as the
 334    binaries that I release) then also change these::
 335
 336          wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING           0
 337          wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT            0
 338
 339
 340 4. Make sure that %WXDIR%\\lib\\vc_dll directory is on the PATH.  The
 341    wxWidgets DLLs will end up there as part of the build and so you'll
 342    need it on the PATH for them to be found at runtime.
 343
 344
 345 5. Change to the %WXDIR%\\build\\msw directory
 346
 347          cd %WXDIR%\\build\\msw
 348
 349
 350 6. If using my scripts then use the .make.btm command to build
 351    wxWidgets.  It needs one command-line parameter which controls what
 352    kind of build(s) to do.  Use one of the following::
 353
 354          debug          Build debug version
 355          hybrid         Build hybrid version
 356          both           Both debug and hybrid
 357          debug-uni      Build a debug unicode library
 358          hybrid-uni     Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
 359          both-uni       and finally both unicode libraries
 360
 361    For example::
 362
 363          .make hybrid
 364
 365    You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
 366    they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
 367    clean up the build::
 368
 369          .make hybrid clean
 370
 371    If *not* using my scripts then you can do it by hand by directly
 372    executing nmake with a bunch of extra command line parameters.
 373    The base set are::
 374
 375         -f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 USE_OPENGL=1
 376
 377    If doing a debug build then add::
 378
 379        BUILD=debug
 380
 381    otherwise add these::
 382
 383        DEBUG_FLAG=1 CXXFLAGS=/D__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ WXDEBUGFLAG=h BUILD=release
 384
 385    If doing a Unicode build then add these flags::
 386
 387        UNICODE=1 MSLU=1
 388
 389    Now, from the %WXDIR%\\build\\msw directory run nmake with your
 390    selection of command-line flags as described above.  Repeat this
 391    same command from the following directories in order to build the
 392    contrib libraries::
 393
 394         %WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
 395         %WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
 396         %WXDIR%\contrib\build\ogl
 397
 398     Note, that the ogl lib build will need an additional flag::
 399
 400         CPPFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0"
 401
 402 7.  When that is all done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs
 403     and also some of the contribs DLLs.  There should be a ton of DLLs
 404     and lots of lib files and other stuff in %WXDIR%\\lib\\vc_dll.
 405
 406
 407 8. Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
 408    unix systems.  We're not going to install the development version
 409    of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
 410    installed version of the latest release.  You'll be able to test
 411    with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
 412    version the rest of the time.  If you ever do want to install the
 413    development version please refer to INSTALL.txt.
 414
 415    Change to the %WXDIR%\\wxPython dir and run the this command,
 416    making sure that you use the version of python that you want to
 417    build for (if you have more than one on your system) and to match
 418    the MONOLITHIC flag with how you built wxWidgets::
 419
 420          cd %WXDIR%\wxPython
 421          python setup.py build_ext --inplace MONOLITHIC=1
 422
 423    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 424    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 425    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 426
 427          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
 428
 429    If you built a Unicode version of wxWidgets and want to also build
 430    the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag::
 431
 432          UNICODE=1
 433
 434    If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to
 435    build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
 436    command line.  You should then end up with a set of ``*_d.pyd``
 437    files in the wx package and you'll have to run ``python_d.exe`` to
 438    use them.  The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
 439
 440    When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
 441    wxPython and wx packages locally in %WXDIR%/wxPython/wxPython and
 442    %WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (``*.pyd``
 443    files) located in the wx package.
 444
 445
 446 9. To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
 447    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree.  For example::
 448
 449         set PYTHONPATH=%WXDIR%\wxPython
 450         cd %WXDIR\wxPython\demo
 451         python demo.py
 452
 453