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7 <title>Building wxPython
2.6 for Development and Testing
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11 <div class=
"document" id=
"building-wxpython-2-6-for-development-and-testing">
12 <h1 class=
"title">Building wxPython
2.6 for Development and Testing
</h1>
13 <p>This file describes how I build wxWidgets and wxPython while doing
14 development and testing, and is meant to help other people that want
15 to do the same thing. I'll assume that you are using either a CVS
16 snapshot from
<a class=
"reference" href=
"http://wxWidgets.org/snapshots/">http://wxWidgets.org/snapshots/
</a>, a checkout from CVS, or
17 one of the released wxPython-src-
2.6.* tarballs. I'll also assume that
18 you know your way around your system, the compiler, etc. and most
19 importantly, that you know what you are doing! ;-)
</p>
20 <p>If you want to also install the version of wxPython you build to be in
21 your site-packages dir and be your default version of wxPython, then a
22 few additional steps are needed, and you may want to use slightly
23 different options. See the
<a class=
"reference" href=
"INSTALL.html">INSTALL
</a> document for more details. If
24 you only use the instructions in this
<a class=
"reference" href=
"BUILD.html">BUILD
</a> document file then you
25 will end up with a separate installation of wxPython and you can
26 switch back and forth between this and the release version that you
27 may already have installed.
</p>
28 <p>If you want to make changes to any of the
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">*.i
</span></tt> files, (SWIG
29 interface definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or
30 renamer modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG,
31 plus some patches. Get the sources for version
1.3.24, and then apply
32 the patches in wxPython/SWIG and then build SWIG like normal. See the
33 README.txt in the wxPython/SWIG dir for details about each patch and
34 also info about those that may already have been applied to the SWIG
35 sources. If you install this build of SWIG to a location that is not
36 on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere with an existing SWIG install for
37 example) then you can set a setup.py command-line variable named SWIG
38 to be the full path name of the executable and the wxPython build will
39 use it. See below for an example.
</p>
40 <p>In the text below I'll use WXDIR with environment variable syntax
41 (either $WXDIR or %WXDIR%) to refer to the top level directory where
42 your wxWidgets and wxPython sources are located. It will equate to
43 whereever you checked out the wxWidgets module from CVS, or untarred
44 the wxPython-src tarball to. You can either substitute the $WXDIR text
45 below with your actual dir, or set the value in the environment and
46 use it just like you see it below.
</p>
47 <p>If you run into what appears to be compatibility issues between
48 wxWidgets and wxPython while building wxPython, be sure you are using
49 the wxWidgets sources included with the wxPython-src tarball or the
50 CVS snapshot, and not a previously installed version or a version
51 installed from one of the standard wxWidgets installers. With the
52 "unstable
" releases (have a odd-numbered minor release value, where
53 the APIs are allowed to change) there are often significant
54 differences between the W.X.Y release of wxWidgets and the W.X.Y.Z
55 release of wxPython.
</p>
56 <div class=
"section" id=
"building-on-unix-like-systems-e-g-linux-and-os-x">
57 <h1><a name=
"building-on-unix-like-systems-e-g-linux-and-os-x">Building on Unix-like Systems (e.g. Linux and OS X)
</a></h1>
58 <p>These platforms are built almost the same way while in development
59 so I'll combine the descriptions about their build process here.
60 First we will build wxWidgets and install it to an out of the way
61 place, then do the same for wxPython.
</p>
63 <li><p class=
"first">Create a build directory in the main wxWidgets dir, and configure
64 wxWidgets. If you want to have multiple builds with different
65 configure options, just use different subdirectories. I normally
66 put the configure command in a script named
".configure
" in each
67 build dir so I can easily blow away everything in the build dir and
68 rerun the script without having to remember the options I used
70 <pre class=
"literal-block">
74 ../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/
2.6 \
80 --enable-sound --with-sdl \
83 --disable-debugreport \
85 <p>On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
86 --with-gtk and --with-gnomeprint.
</p>
87 <p><strong>NOTE
</strong>: Due to a recent change there is currently a dependency
88 problem in the multilib builds of wxWidgets on OSX, so I have
89 switched to using a monolithic build. That means that all of the
90 core wxWidgets code is placed in in one shared library instead of
91 several. wxPython can be used with either mode, so use whatever
92 suits you on Linux and etc. but use monolithic on OSX. To switch
93 to the monolithic build of wxWidgets just add this configure flag:
</p>
94 <pre class=
"literal-block">
97 <p>By default GTK
2.x will be used for the build. If you would rather
98 use GTK
1.2.x for some reason then you can force configure to use
99 it by changing the --with-gtk flag to specify it like this:
</p>
100 <pre class=
"literal-block">
103 <p>To make the wxWidgets build be unicode enabled (strongly
104 recommended if you are building with GTK2) then add the following.
105 When wxPython is unicode enabled then all strings that are passed
106 to wx functions and methods will first be converted to unicode
107 objects, and any 'strings' returned from wx functions and methods
108 will actually be unicode objects.:
</p>
109 <pre class=
"literal-block">
112 <p>Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/
2.6. You can use whatever
113 path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
114 standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
115 using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
116 of wxWidgets
"installed
" and makes it easy to switch between them,
117 without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been
118 installed via an RPM or whatever. For the rest of the steps below
119 be sure to also substitute
"/opt/wx/
2.6" with whatever prefix you
120 choose for your build.
</p>
121 <p>If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
122 wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for
123 example, to reduce dependencies on
3rd party libraries) then you
124 can add these flags to the configure command:
</p>
125 <pre class=
"literal-block">
126 --with-libjpeg=builtin \
127 --with-libpng=builtin \
128 --with-libtiff=builtin \
129 --with-zlib=builtin \
132 <li><p class=
"first">To build and install wxWidgets you could just use the
"make
"
133 command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets
134 libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
135 all for me so I don't forget anything. This time it is called
136 ".make
" (I use the leading
".
" so when I do
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">rm
</span> <span class=
"pre">-r
</span> <span class=
"pre">*
</span></tt> in my build
137 dir I don't lose my scripts too.) This is what it looks like:
</p>
138 <pre class=
"literal-block">
140 && make -C contrib/src/animate $* \
141 && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
142 && make -C contrib/src/stc $*
144 <p>So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
145 the execute bit on .make first!:
</p>
146 <pre class=
"literal-block">
150 <p>When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
151 /opt/wx/
2.6 containing just wxWidgets. Now to use this version of
152 wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/
2.6/bin to the PATH and set
153 LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/
2.6/lib.
</p>
155 <li><p class=
"first">I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
156 to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but you probably don't want to
157 use it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG,
158 so if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then
159 you'll probably get stuck. So I'll just give the raw commands
161 <p>We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
162 these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
163 of the latest release. You'll be able test with this version when
164 you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
165 time. If you want to install the development version please read
167 <p>If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
168 sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
169 wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below. I'll be
171 <p>Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
172 installed above, and then change to the $WXDIR/wxPython dir and
173 run the this command:
</p>
174 <pre class=
"literal-block">
176 python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
178 <p>If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
179 other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
180 command line to ensure your new one is used instead:
</p>
181 <pre class=
"literal-block">
182 WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/
2.6/bin/wx-config
184 <p>By default setup.py will assume that you built wxWidgets to use
185 GTK2. If you built wxWidgets to use GTK
1.2.x then you should add
186 this flag to the command-line:
</p>
187 <pre class=
"literal-block">
190 <p>If you would like to do a Unicode enabled build (all strings sent
191 to or retruned from wx functions are Unicode objects) and your
192 wxWidgets was built with unicode enabled then add this flag:
</p>
193 <pre class=
"literal-block">
196 <p>If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
197 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
198 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags:
</p>
199 <pre class=
"literal-block">
200 USE_SWIG=
1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
202 <p>If you get errors about being unable to find libGLU, wxGLCanvas
203 being undeclared, or something similar then you can add
204 BUILD_GLCANVAS=
0 to the setup.py command line to disable the
205 building of the glcanvas module.
</p>
206 <p>When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
207 wxPython and wx packages locally in $WXDIR/wxPython/wxPython and
208 $WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">*.so
</span></tt> files)
209 located in the wx package.
</p>
211 <li><p class=
"first">To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
212 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir located in the source tree. For
214 <pre class=
"literal-block">
215 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/
2.6/lib
216 export PYTHONPATH=$WXDIR/wxPython
217 cd $WXDIR/wxPython/demo
220 <p>OS X NOTE: You need to use
"pythonw
" on the command line to run
221 wxPython applications. This version of the Python executable is
222 part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
223 display. You can also double click on a .py or a .pyw file from
224 the finder (assuming that the PythonLauncher app is associated with
225 these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
226 Python for you. For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
227 of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
</p>
228 <p>SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
229 wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
230 you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
231 code in config.py and building again. Look for 'SunOS' in config.py
232 and uncomment the block containing it. The problem is that Sun's ld
233 does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
</p>
237 <div class=
"section" id=
"building-on-windows">
238 <h1><a name=
"building-on-windows">Building on Windows
</a></h1>
239 <p>The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
240 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
241 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
242 happen. If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
243 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
244 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
245 to accommodate that. (And send the patches to me.) If you plan on
246 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC
7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
247 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
248 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime library is
249 used. The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
250 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC
6 with all
251 the Service Packs applied. This policy will change with Python
2.4
252 and MSVC
7.1 will be used starting with that version.
</p>
253 <p>If you want to build a debuggable version of wxWidgets and wxPython you
254 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
255 extension modules you need to use. You can tell if you have them
256 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
257 or python23_d.dll. If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
258 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
259 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
261 <p>Starting with
2.5.3.0 wxPython can be built for either the monlithic
262 or the multi-lib wxWidgets builds. (Monolithic means that all the
263 core wxWidgets code is in one DLL, and multi-lib means that the core
264 code is divided into multiple DLLs.) To select which one to use
265 specify the MONOLITHIC flag for both the wxWidgets build and the
266 wxPython build as shown below, setting it to either
0 or
1.
</p>
267 <p>Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
268 wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it. So if you have
269 bash (cygwin or probably MSYS too) or
4NT plus unix-like cat and sed
270 programs then there is a copy of my wxWidgets build scripts in
271 %WXDIR%\wxPython\distrib\msw. Just copy them to
272 %WXDIR%\build\msw and you can use them to do your build, otherwise
273 you can do everything by hand as described below. But if you do work
274 by hand and something doesn't seem to be working correctly please
275 refer to the build scripts to see what may need to be done
277 <p>The *.btm files are for
4NT and the others are for bash. They are:
</p>
278 <pre class=
"literal-block">
279 .make/.make.btm Builds the main lib and the needed contribs
280 .mymake/.mymake.btm Builds just one lib, use by .make
281 .makesetup.mk A makefile that will copy and edit setup.h
282 as needed for the different types of builds
284 <p>Okay. Here's what you've been waiting for, the instructions! Adapt
285 accordingly if you are using the bash shell.
</p>
287 <li><p class=
"first">Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWidgets source
288 tree. This is used by the makefiles:
</p>
289 <pre class=
"literal-block">
293 <li><p class=
"first">Copy setup0.h to setup.h:
</p>
294 <pre class=
"literal-block">
295 cd %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw
296 copy setup0.h setup.h
299 <li><p class=
"first">Edit %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw\setup.h and change a few settings:
</p>
300 <pre class=
"literal-block">
301 wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY
0
302 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT
1
303 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING
1
304 wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER
0
307 wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT
0
311 <p>If you are using my build scripts then a few more settings will be
312 changed and then a copy of setup.h is placed in a subdir of
313 %WXWIN%\libvc_dll. If you are doing it by hand and making a
314 UNICODE build, then also change these:
</p>
315 <pre class=
"literal-block">
319 <p>If you are doing a
"hybrid
" build (which is the same as the
320 binaries that I release) then also change these:
</p>
321 <pre class=
"literal-block">
322 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING
0
323 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT
0
326 <li><p class=
"first">Make sure that %WXDIR%\lib\vc_dll directory is on the PATH. The
327 wxWidgets DLLs will end up there as part of the build and so you'll
328 need it on the PATH for them to be found at runtime.
</p>
330 <li><p class=
"first">Change to the %WXDIR%\build\msw directory
</p>
332 <p>cd %WXDIR%\build\msw
</p>
335 <li><p class=
"first">If using my scripts then use the .make.btm command to build
336 wxWidgets. It needs one command-line parameter which controls what
337 kind of build(s) to do. Use one of the following:
</p>
338 <pre class=
"literal-block">
339 debug Build debug version
340 hybrid Build hybrid version
341 both Both debug and hybrid
342 debug-uni Build a debug unicode library
343 hybrid-uni Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
344 both-uni and finally both unicode libraries
347 <pre class=
"literal-block">
350 <p>You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
351 they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
352 clean up the build:
</p>
353 <pre class=
"literal-block">
356 <p>If
<em>not
</em> using my scripts then you can do it by hand by directly
357 executing nmake with a bunch of extra command line parameters.
358 The base set are:
</p>
359 <pre class=
"literal-block">
360 nmake -f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=
1 SHARED=
1 MONOLITHIC=
1 USE_OPENGL=
1
362 <p>If doing a debug build then add:
</p>
363 <pre class=
"literal-block">
366 <p>otherwise add these:
</p>
367 <pre class=
"literal-block">
368 DEBUG_FLAG=
1 CXXFLAGS=/D__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ WXDEBUGFLAG=h BUILD=release
370 <p>If doing a Unicode build then add these flags:
</p>
371 <pre class=
"literal-block">
374 <p>Now, from the %WXDIR%\build\msw directory run nmake with your
375 selection of command-line flags as described above. Repeat this
376 same command from the following directories in order to build the
377 contrib libraries:
</p>
378 <pre class=
"literal-block">
379 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\animate
380 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
381 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
384 <li><p class=
"first">When that is all done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs
385 and also some of the contribs DLLs. There should be a ton of DLLs
386 and lots of lib files and other stuff in %WXDIR%\lib\vc_dll.
</p>
388 <li><p class=
"first">Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
389 unix systems. We're not going to install the development version
390 of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
391 installed version of the latest release. You'll be able to test
392 with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
393 version the rest of the time. If you ever do want to install the
394 development version please refer to INSTALL.txt.
</p>
395 <p>Change to the %WXDIR%\wxPython dir and run the this command,
396 making sure that you use the version of python that you want to
397 build for (if you have more than one on your system) and to match
398 the MONOLITHIC flag with how you built wxWidgets:
</p>
399 <pre class=
"literal-block">
401 python setup.py build_ext --inplace MONOLITHIC=
1
403 <p>If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
404 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
405 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags:
</p>
406 <pre class=
"literal-block">
407 USE_SWIG=
1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
409 <p>If you built a Unicode version of wxWidgets and want to also build
410 the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag:
</p>
411 <pre class=
"literal-block">
414 <p>If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to
415 build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
416 command line. You should then end up with a set of
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">*_d.pyd
</span></tt>
417 files in the wx package and you'll have to run
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">python_d.exe
</span></tt> to
418 use them. The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
</p>
419 <p>When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
420 wxPython and wx packages locally in %WXDIR%/wxPython/wxPython and
421 %WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (
<tt class=
"docutils literal"><span class=
"pre">*.pyd
</span></tt>
422 files) located in the wx package.
</p>
424 <li><p class=
"first">To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
425 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree. For example:
</p>
426 <pre class=
"literal-block">
427 set PYTHONPATH=%WXDIR%\wxPython
428 cd %WXDIR\wxPython\demo