1 Building wxPython 2.5 for Development and Testing
 
   2 =================================================
 
   4 This file describes how I build wxWindows 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://wxwindows.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 that you
 
  10 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 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
 
  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
 
  37 Building on Unix-like Systems (e.g. Linux and OS X)
 
  38 ---------------------------------------------------
 
  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 wxWindows and install it to an out of the way
 
  43 place, then do the same for wxPython.
 
  46 1. Create a build directory in the main wxWindows dir, and configure
 
  47    wxWindows.  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
 
  56          ../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.5 \
 
  59                       --disable-monolithic \
 
  64    On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
 
  65    --with-gtk.  For GTK2 and unicode add:
 
  70    Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.5.  You can use whatever
 
  71    path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
 
  72    standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
 
  73    using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
 
  74    of wxWindows "installed" and makes it easy to switch between them,
 
  75    without impacting any versions of wxWindows that may have been
 
  76    installed via an RPM or whatever.  For the rest of the steps below
 
  77    be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.5" with whatever prefix you
 
  78    choose for your build.
 
  80    If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
 
  81    wxWindows instead of those already installed on your system, (for
 
  82    example, to reduce dependencies on 3rd party libraries) then you
 
  83    can add these flags to the configure command::
 
  85                      --with-libjpeg=builtin \
 
  86                      --with-libpng=builtin \
 
  87                      --with-libtiff=builtin \
 
  91 2. To build and install wxWindows you could just use the "make"
 
  92    command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWindows
 
  93    libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
 
  94    all for me so I don't forget anything.  This time it is called
 
  95    ".make" (I use the leading ".  so when I do "rm -r *" in my build
 
  96    dir I don't lose my scripts too.)  This is what it looks like::
 
  99             && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
 
 100             && make -C contrib/src/ogl CXXFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0" $* \
 
 101             && make -C contrib/src/stc $* \
 
 102             && make -C contrib/src/xrc $* 
 
 104    So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
 
 105    the execute bit on .make first!::
 
 110    When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
 
 111    /opt/wx/2.5 containing just wxWindows.  Now to use this version of
 
 112    wxWindows you just need to add /opt/wx/2.5/bin to the PATH and set
 
 113    LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.5/lib.
 
 116 3. I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
 
 117    to the CVS as wxWindows/wxPython/b, but probably don't want to use
 
 118    it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG, so
 
 119    if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then you'll
 
 120    probably get stuck.  So I'll just give the raw commands instead.
 
 122    We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
 
 123    these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
 
 124    of the latest release.  You'll be able test with this version when
 
 125    you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
 
 126    time.  If do want to install the development verison please read
 
 129    If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
 
 130    sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
 
 131    wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below.  I'll be
 
 134    Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
 
 135    installed above, and then change to the wxWindows/wxPython dir and
 
 136    run the this command::
 
 139          python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
 
 141    If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
 
 142    other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
 
 143    command line to ensure your new one is used instead::
 
 145          WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.5/bin/wx-config
 
 147    If you are building with GTK2 then add the following flags to the
 
 150          WXPORT=gtk2 UNICODE=1
 
 152    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 
 153    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 
 154    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 
 156          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
 
 158    If you get errors about wxGLCanvas or being unable to find libGLU
 
 159    or something like that then you can add BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 to the
 
 160    setup.py command line to disable the building of the glcanvas
 
 163    When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
 
 164    wxPython and wx packages locally in wxWindows/wxPython/wxPython and
 
 165    .../wx, with all the extension modules (*.so files) located in the
 
 169 4. To run code with the development verison of wxPython, just set the
 
 170    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree.  For example::
 
 172         export LD_LIBRARY=/opt/wx/2.5/lib
 
 173         export PYTHONPATH=/myprojects/wxWindows/wxPython
 
 174         cd /myprojects/wxWindows/wxPython/demo
 
 177    OS X NOTE: You need to use "pythonw" on the command line to run
 
 178    wxPython applications.  This version of the Python executable is
 
 179    part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
 
 180    display.  You can also Double Click on a .py or a .pyw file from
 
 181    the finder (assuming that PythonLauncher is still associated with
 
 182    these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
 
 183    Python for you.  For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
 
 184    of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
 
 186    SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
 
 187    wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
 
 188    you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
 
 189    code in setup.py and building again.  Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
 
 190    and uncomment the block containing it.  The problem is that Sun's ld
 
 191    does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
 
 199 The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
 
 200 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
 
 201 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
 
 202 happen.  If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
 
 203 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
 
 204 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
 
 205 to accomodate that.  (And send the patches to me.)  If you plan on
 
 206 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC 7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
 
 207 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
 
 208 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime likbrary is
 
 209 used.  The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
 
 210 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC 6 with all
 
 211 the Service Packs applied.
 
 213 If you want to build a debugable version of wxWindows and wxPython you
 
 214 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
 
 215 extension modules you need to use.  You can tell if you have them
 
 216 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
 
 217 or python23_d.dll.  If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
 
 218 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
 
 219 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
 
 222 Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
 
 223 wxWindows, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it.  So if you want
 
 224 to use them too you'll need to get a copy or 4DOS or 4NT from
 
 225 http://www.jpsoft.com/ and also a copy of unix-like cat and sed
 
 226 programs.  You can also do by hand what my scripts are doing, but
 
 227 there are a lof steps involved and I won't be going into details
 
 228 here.  There is a copy of my build scripts in wxWindows\wxPython\distrib\msw
 
 231 1. Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWindows source
 
 234          set WXWIN=e:\projects\wxWindows
 
 236 2. Copy setup0.h to setup.h
 
 238          cd %WXWIN%\include\wx\msw
 
 239          copy setup0.h setup.h
 
 242 3. Edit %WXWIN%\include\wx\msw\setup.h and change a few settings.
 
 243    Some of them are changed by my build scripts depending on the type
 
 244    of build (debug/hybrid, unicode/ansi). I change a few of the other
 
 245    defaults to have these values::
 
 247          wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY    0
 
 248          wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT            1
 
 249          wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING           1
 
 250          wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER           0
 
 253          wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT       0
 
 256 4. Make a %WXWIN%\BIN directory and add it to the PATH.  My build
 
 257    scripts will copy the wxWindows DLLs there.
 
 260 5. Change to the %WXWIN%\build\msw directory and copy my build scripts
 
 264 6. Use the .make.btm command to build wxWindows.  It needs one
 
 265    command-line parameter which controls what kind of build(s) to do.
 
 266    Use one of the following::
 
 268          debug          Build debug version
 
 269          hybrid         Build hybrid version
 
 270          both           Both debug and hybrid
 
 271          debug-uni      Build a debug unicode library
 
 272          hybrid-uni     Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
 
 273          both-uni       and finally both unicode libraries
 
 279     You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
 
 280     they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
 
 286 7.  When that is done it will have built the main wxWindows DLLs and
 
 287     also some of the contribs DLLs.  There should be a ton of DLLs in
 
 288     %WXDIR%\bin and lots of lib files and other stuff in
 
 292 8. Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
 
 293    unix systems.  We're not going to install the development version
 
 294    of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
 
 295    installed version of the latest release.  You'll be able to test
 
 296    with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
 
 297    version the rest of the time.  If you ever do want to install the
 
 298    development verison please refer to INSTALL.txt.
 
 300    Change to the wxWindows\wxPython dir and run the this command,
 
 301    makeing sure that you use the version of python that you want to
 
 302    build for (if you have more than one on your system)::
 
 305          python setup.py build_ext --inplace 
 
 307    If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 
 308    then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
 
 309    where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags::
 
 311          USE_SWIG=1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
 
 313    If you built a Unicode version of wxWindows and want to also build
 
 314    the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag::
 
 318    If you have a debug version of Python and wxWindows and want to
 
 319    build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
 
 320    command line.  You should then end up with a set of *_d.pyd files
 
 321    in the wx package and you'll have to run python_d.exe to use them.
 
 322    The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
 
 324    When the setuyp.py command is done you should have fully populated
 
 325    wxPython and wx packages locally in wxWindows/wxPython/wxPython and
 
 326    wxWindows/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (*.pyd files)
 
 327    located in the wx package.
 
 330 9. To run code with the development verison of wxPython, just set the
 
 331    PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree.  For example::
 
 333         set PYTHONPATH=e:\projects\wxWindows\wxPython
 
 334         cd e:\projects\wxWindows\wxPython