1 Building wxPython 2.5 for Development and Testing
2 =================================================
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 wxPythonSrc-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! ;-)
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.
21 .. _INSTALL: INSTALL.html
24 If you want to make changes to any of the ``*.i`` files, (SWIG interface
25 definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or renamer
26 modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG. Either get
27 and build the current CVS version, or version 1.3.20, and then apply
28 the patches in wxPython/SWIG. See the README.txt in that dir for
29 details about each patch and also info about those that may already
30 have been applied to the SWIG sources. If you install this build of
31 SWIG to a location that is not on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere
32 with an existing SWIG install for example) then you can set a setup.py
33 command-line variable named SWIG to be the full path name of the
34 executable and the wxPython build will use it. See below for an
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 were
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 wxPythonSrc 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.
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 wxPythonSrc tarball or the CVS
48 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
57 Building on Unix-like Systems (e.g. Linux and OS X)
58 ---------------------------------------------------
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.
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
77 ../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.5 \
80 --disable-monolithic \
83 --enable-sound --with-sdl \
87 On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
88 --with-gtk. For GTK2 and unicode add::
93 Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.5. You can use whatever
94 path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
95 standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
96 using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
97 of wxWidgets "installed" and makes it easy to switch between them,
98 without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been
99 installed via an RPM or whatever. For the rest of the steps below
100 be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.5" with whatever prefix you
101 choose for your build.
103 If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
104 wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for
105 example, to reduce dependencies on 3rd party libraries) then you
106 can add these flags to the configure command::
108 --with-libjpeg=builtin \
109 --with-libpng=builtin \
110 --with-libtiff=builtin \
111 --with-zlib=builtin \
114 2. To build and install wxWidgets you could just use the "make"
115 command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets
116 libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
117 all for me so I don't forget anything. This time it is called
118 ".make" (I use the leading ". so when I do ``rm -r *`` in my build
119 dir I don't lose my scripts too.) This is what it looks like::
122 && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
123 && make -C contrib/src/ogl CXXFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0" $* \
124 && make -C contrib/src/stc $* \
125 && make -C contrib/src/xrc $*
127 So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
128 the execute bit on .make first!::
133 When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
134 /opt/wx/2.5 containing just wxWidgets. Now to use this version of
135 wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/2.5/bin to the PATH and set
136 LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.5/lib.
139 3. I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
140 to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but you probably don't want to
141 use it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG,
142 so if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then
143 you'll probably get stuck. So I'll just give the raw commands
146 We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
147 these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
148 of the latest release. You'll be able test with this version when
149 you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
150 time. If you want to install the development version please read
153 If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
154 sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
155 wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below. I'll be
158 Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
159 installed above, and then change to the $WXDIR/wxPython dir and
160 run the this command::
163 python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
165 If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
166 other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
167 command line to ensure your new one is used instead::
169 WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.5/bin/wx-config
171 If you are building with GTK2 then add the following flags to the
174 WXPORT=gtk2 UNICODE=1
176 If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
177 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
178 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
180 USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
182 If you get errors about being unable to find libGLU, wxGLCanvas
183 being undeclared, or something similar then you can add
184 BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 to the setup.py command line to disable the
185 building of the glcanvas module.
187 When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
188 wxPython and wx packages locally in $WXDIR/wxPython/wxPython and
189 $WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (``*.so`` files)
190 located in the wx package.
193 4. To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
194 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir located in the source tree. For
197 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/2.5/lib
198 export PYTHONPATH=$WXDIR/wxPython
199 cd $WXDIR/wxPython/demo
202 OS X NOTE: You need to use "pythonw" on the command line to run
203 wxPython applications. This version of the Python executable is
204 part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
205 display. You can also double click on a .py or a .pyw file from
206 the finder (assuming that the PythonLauncher app is associated with
207 these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
208 Python for you. For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
209 of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
211 SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
212 wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
213 you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
214 code in setup.py and building again. Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
215 and uncomment the block containing it. The problem is that Sun's ld
216 does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
224 The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
225 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
226 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
227 happen. If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
228 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
229 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
230 to accomodate that. (And send the patches to me.) If you plan on
231 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC 7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
232 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
233 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime library is
234 used. The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
235 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC 6 with all
236 the Service Packs applied. This policy will change with Python 2.4
237 and MSVC 7.1 will be used starting with that version.
239 If you want to build a debuggable version of wxWidgets and wxPython you
240 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
241 extension modules you need to use. You can tell if you have them
242 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
243 or python23_d.dll. If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
244 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
245 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
248 Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
249 wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it. So if you have
250 bash (cygwin or probably MSYS too) or 4NT plus unix-like cat and sed
251 programs then there is a copy of my wxWidgets build scripts in
252 %WXDIR%\\wxPython\\distrib\\msw. Just copy them to
253 %WXDIR%\\build\\msw and you can use them to do your build, otherwise
254 you can do everything by hand as described below. But if you do work
255 by hand and something doesn't seem to be working correctly please
256 refer to the build scripts to see what may need to be done
259 The \*.btm files are for 4NT and the others are for bash. They are::
261 .make/.make.btm Builds the main lib and the needed contribs
262 .mymake/.mymake.btm Builds just one lib, use by .make
263 .makesetup.mk A makefile that will copy and edit setup.h
264 as needed for the different types of builds
266 Okay. Here's what you've been waiting for, the instructions! Adapt
267 accordingly if you are using the bash shell.
269 1. Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWidgets source
270 tree. This is used by the makefiles::
274 2. Copy setup0.h to setup.h::
276 cd %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw
277 copy setup0.h setup.h
280 3. Edit %WXDIR%\\include\\wx\\msw\\setup.h and change a few settings::
282 wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY 0
283 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT 1
284 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING 1
285 wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER 0
288 wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT 0
291 If you are using my build scripts then a few more settings will be
292 changed and then a copy of setup.h is placed in a subdir of
293 %WXWIN%\\lib\vc_dll. If you are doing it by hand and making a
294 UNICODE build, then also change these::
299 If you are doing a "hybrid" build (which is the same as the
300 binaries that I release) then also change these::
302 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING 0
303 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT 0
306 4. Make sure that %WXDIR%\\lib\\vc_dll directory is on the PATH. The
307 wxWidgets DLLs will end up there as part of the build and so you'll
308 need it on the PATH for them to be found at runtime.
311 5. Change to the %WXDIR%\\build\\msw directory
313 cd %WXDIR%\\build\\msw
316 6. If using my scripts then use the .make.btm command to build
317 wxWidgets. It needs one command-line parameter which controls what
318 kind of build(s) to do. Use one of the following::
320 debug Build debug version
321 hybrid Build hybrid version
322 both Both debug and hybrid
323 debug-uni Build a debug unicode library
324 hybrid-uni Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
325 both-uni and finally both unicode libraries
331 You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
332 they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
337 If *not* using my scripts then you can do it by hand by directly
338 executing nmake with a bunch of extra command line parameters.
341 -f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=0 USE_OPENGL=1
343 If doing a debug build then add::
347 otherwise add these::
349 DEBUG_FLAG=1 CXXFLAGS=/D__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ WXDEBUGFLAG=h BUILD=release
351 If doing a Unicode build then add these flags::
355 Now, from the %WXDIR%\\build\\msw directory run nmake with your
356 selection of command-line flags as described above. Repeat this
357 same command from the following directories in order to build the
360 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
361 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\xrc
362 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
363 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\ogl
366 7. When that is all done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs
367 and also some of the contribs DLLs. There should be a ton of DLLs
368 and lots of lib files and other stuff in %WXDIR%\\lib\\vc_dll.
371 8. Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
372 unix systems. We're not going to install the development version
373 of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
374 installed version of the latest release. You'll be able to test
375 with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
376 version the rest of the time. If you ever do want to install the
377 development version please refer to INSTALL.txt.
379 Change to the %WXDIR%\\wxPython dir and run the this command,
380 making sure that you use the version of python that you want to
381 build for (if you have more than one on your system)::
384 python setup.py build_ext --inplace
386 If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
387 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
388 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
390 USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
392 If you built a Unicode version of wxWidgets and want to also build
393 the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag::
397 If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to
398 build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
399 command line. You should then end up with a set of ``*_d.pyd``
400 files in the wx package and you'll have to run ``python_d.exe`` to
401 use them. The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
403 When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
404 wxPython and wx packages locally in %WXDIR%/wxPython/wxPython and
405 %WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (``*.pyd``
406 files) located in the wx package.
409 9. To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
410 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree. For example::
412 set PYTHONPATH=%WXDIR%\wxPython
413 cd %WXDIR\wxPython\demo