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 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!  ;-)
  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 INSTALL.txt for more details.  If you only use
  16 the instructions in this BUILD.txt file then you will end up with a
  17 separate installation of wxPython and you can switch back and forth
  18 between this and the release version that you may already have
  19 installed.
  20
  21 If you want to make changes to any of the ``*.i`` files, (SWIG interface
  22 definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or renamer
  23 modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG.  Either get
  24 and build the current CVS version, or version 1.3.20, and then apply
  25 the patches in wxPython/SWIG.  See the README.txt in that dir for
  26 details about each patch and also info about those that may already
  27 have been applied to the SWIG sources.  If you install this build of
  28 SWIG to a location that is not on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere
  29 with an existing SWIG install for example) then you can set a setup.py
  30 command-line variable named SWIG to be the full path name of the
  31 executable and the wxPython build will use it.  See below for an
  32 example.
  33
  34
  35
  36
  37 Building on Unix-like Systems (e.g. Linux and OS X)
  38 ---------------------------------------------------
  39
  40 These platforms are built almost the same way while in development
  41 so I'll combine the descriptions about their build process here.
  42 First we will build wxWidgets and install it to an out of the way
  43 place, then do the same for wxPython.
  44
  45
  46 1. Create a build directory in the main wxWidgets dir, and configure
  47    wxWidgets.  If you want to have multiple builds with different
  48    configure options, just use different subdirectories.  I normally
  49    put the configure command in a script named ".configure" in each
  50    build dir so I can easily blow away everything in the build dir and
  51    rerun the script without having to remember the options I used
  52    before::
  53
  54          mkdir bld
  55          cd bld
  56          ../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.5 \
  57                       --with-gtk \
  58                       --with-opengl \
  59                       --disable-monolithic \
  60                       --enable-debug \
  61                       --enable-geometry \
  62                       --enable-sound --with-sdl \
  63                       --enable-display \
  64
  65
  66    On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
  67    --with-gtk.  For GTK2 and unicode add::
  68
  69                       --enable-gtk2 \
  70                       --enable-unicode \
  71
  72    Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.5.  You can use whatever
  73    path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
  74    standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
  75    using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
  76    of wxWidgets "installed" and makes it easy to switch between them,
  77    without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been
  78    installed via an RPM or whatever.  For the rest of the steps below
  79    be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.5" with whatever prefix you
  80    choose for your build.
  81
  82    If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
  83    wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for
  84    example, to reduce dependencies on 3rd party libraries) then you
  85    can add these flags to the configure command::
  86
  87                      --with-libjpeg=builtin \
  88                      --with-libpng=builtin \
  89                      --with-libtiff=builtin \
  90                      --with-zlib=builtin \
  91
  92
  93 2. To build and install wxWidgets you could just use the "make"
  94    command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets
  95    libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
  96    all for me so I don't forget anything.  This time it is called
  97    ".make" (I use the leading ".  so when I do ``rm -r *`` in my build
  98    dir I don't lose my scripts too.)  This is what it looks like::
  99
 100         make $* \
 101             && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
 102             && make -C contrib/src/ogl CXXFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0" $* \
 103             && make -C contrib/src/stc $* \
 104             && make -C contrib/src/xrc $*
 105
 106    So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
 107    the execute bit on .make first!::
 108
 109          .make
 110          .make install
 111
 112    When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
 113    /opt/wx/2.5 containing just wxWidgets.  Now to use this version of
 114    wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/2.5/bin to the PATH and set
 115    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.5/lib.
 116
 117
 118 3. I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
 119    to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but probably don't want to use
 120    it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG, so
 121    if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then you'll
 122    probably get stuck.  So I'll just give the raw commands instead.
 123
 124    We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
 125    these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
 126    of the latest release.  You'll be able test with this version when
 127    you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
 128    time.  If do want to install the development verison please read
 129    INSTALL.txt.
 130
 131    If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
 132    sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
 133    wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below.  I'll be
 134    using python2.3.
 135
 136    Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
 137    installed above, and then change to the wxWidgets/wxPython dir and
 138    run the this command::
 139
 140          cd wxPython
 141          python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
 142
 143    If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
 144    other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
 145    command line to ensure your new one is used instead::
 146
 147          WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.5/bin/wx-config
 148
 149    If you are building with GTK2 then add the following flags to the
 150    command line::
 151
 152          WXPORT=gtk2 UNICODE=1
 153
 154    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 155    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 156    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 157
 158          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
 159
 160    If you get errors about wxGLCanvas or being unable to find libGLU
 161    or something like that then you can add BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 to the
 162    setup.py command line to disable the building of the glcanvas
 163    module.
 164
 165    When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
 166    wxPython and wx packages locally in wxWidgets/wxPython/wxPython and
 167    .../wx, with all the extension modules (``*.so`` files) located in the
 168    wx package.
 169
 170
 171 4. To run code with the development verison of wxPython, just set the
 172    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree.  For example::
 173
 174         export LD_LIBRARY=/opt/wx/2.5/lib
 175         export PYTHONPATH=/myprojects/wxWidgets/wxPython
 176         cd /myprojects/wxWidgets/wxPython/demo
 177         python2.3 demo.py
 178
 179    OS X NOTE: You need to use "pythonw" on the command line to run
 180    wxPython applications.  This version of the Python executable is
 181    part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
 182    display.  You can also double click on a .py or a .pyw file from
 183    the finder (assuming that PythonLauncher is still associated with
 184    these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
 185    Python for you.  For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
 186    of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
 187
 188    SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
 189    wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
 190    you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
 191    code in setup.py and building again.  Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
 192    and uncomment the block containing it.  The problem is that Sun's ld
 193    does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
 194
 195
 196
 197
 198 Building on Windows
 199 -------------------
 200
 201 The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
 202 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
 203 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
 204 happen.  If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
 205 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
 206 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
 207 to accomodate that.  (And send the patches to me.)  If you plan on
 208 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC 7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
 209 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
 210 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime likbrary is
 211 used.  The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
 212 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC 6 with all
 213 the Service Packs applied.
 214
 215 If you want to build a debugable version of wxWidgets and wxPython you
 216 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
 217 extension modules you need to use.  You can tell if you have them
 218 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
 219 or python23_d.dll.  If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
 220 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
 221 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
 222 it.
 223
 224 Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
 225 wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it.  So if you want
 226 to use them too you'll need to get a copy or 4DOS or 4NT from
 227 http://www.jpsoft.com/ and also a copy of unix-like cat and sed
 228 programs.  You can also do by hand what my scripts are doing, but
 229 there are a lof steps involved and I won't be going into details
 230 here.  There is a copy of my build scripts in wxWidgets\wxPython\distrib\msw
 231
 232
 233 1. Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWidgets source
 234    tree::
 235
 236          set WXWIN=e:\projects\wxWidgets
 237
 238 2. Copy setup0.h to setup.h
 239
 240          cd %WXWIN%\include\wx\msw
 241          copy setup0.h setup.h
 242
 243
 244 3. Edit %WXWIN%\include\wx\msw\setup.h and change a few settings.
 245    Some of them are changed by my build scripts depending on the type
 246    of build (debug/hybrid, unicode/ansi). I change a few of the other
 247    defaults to have these values::
 248
 249          wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY    0
 250          wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT            1
 251          wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING           1
 252          wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER           0
 253          wxUSE_GLCANVAS                 1
 254          wxUSE_POSTSCRIPT               1
 255          wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT       0
 256          wxUSE_DISPLAY                  1
 257
 258
 259 4. Make sure that %WXWIN%\lib\vc_dll directory is on the PATH.  The
 260    wxWidgets DLLs will end up there as part of the build and so you'll
 261    need it on the PATH for them to be found at runtime.
 262
 263
 264 5. Change to the %WXWIN%\build\msw directory and copy my build scripts
 265    there.
 266
 267
 268 6. Use the .make.btm command to build wxWidgets.  It needs one
 269    command-line parameter which controls what kind of build(s) to do.
 270    Use one of the following::
 271
 272          debug          Build debug version
 273          hybrid         Build hybrid version
 274          both           Both debug and hybrid
 275          debug-uni      Build a debug unicode library
 276          hybrid-uni     Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
 277          both-uni       and finally both unicode libraries
 278
 279    For example::
 280
 281          .make hybrid
 282
 283     You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
 284     they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
 285     clean up the build::
 286
 287          .make hybrid clean
 288
 289
 290 7.  When that is done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs and
 291     also some of the contribs DLLs.  There should be a ton of DLLs in
 292     %WXDIR%\bin and lots of lib files and other stuff in
 293     %WXDIR%\lib\vc_dll.
 294
 295
 296 8. Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
 297    unix systems.  We're not going to install the development version
 298    of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
 299    installed version of the latest release.  You'll be able to test
 300    with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
 301    version the rest of the time.  If you ever do want to install the
 302    development verison please refer to INSTALL.txt.
 303
 304    Change to the wxWidgets\wxPython dir and run the this command,
 305    makeing sure that you use the version of python that you want to
 306    build for (if you have more than one on your system)::
 307
 308          cd %WXWIN%\wxPython
 309          python setup.py build_ext --inplace
 310
 311    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 312    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 313    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 314
 315          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
 316
 317    If you built a Unicode version of wxWidgets and want to also build
 318    the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag::
 319
 320          UNICODE=1
 321
 322    If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to
 323    build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
 324    command line.  You should then end up with a set of ``*_d.pyd``
 325    files in the wx package and you'll have to run ``python_d.exe`` to
 326    use them.  The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
 327
 328    When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
 329    wxPython and wx packages locally in wxWidgets/wxPython/wxPython and
 330    wxWidgets/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (``*.pyd``
 331    files) located in the wx package.
 332
 333
 334 9. To run code with the development verison of wxPython, just set the
 335    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree.  For example::
 336
 337         set PYTHONPATH=e:\projects\wxWidgets\wxPython
 338         cd e:\projects\wxWidgets\wxPython
 339         python demo.py
 340
 341