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7 <title>Building wxPython
2.5 for Development and Testing
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11 <div class=
"document" id=
"building-wxpython-2-5-for-development-and-testing">
12 <h1 class=
"title">Building wxPython
2.5 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-
2.5.* 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=
"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/
2.5 \
79 --enable-sound --with-sdl \
81 --disable-debugreport \
83 <p>On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of
85 <p><strong>NOTE
</strong>: Due to a recent change there is currently a dependency
86 problem in the multilib builds of wxWidgets on OSX, so I have
87 switched to using a monolithic build. That means that all of the
88 core wxWidgets code is placed in in one shared library instead of
89 several. wxPython can be used with either mode, so use whatever
90 suits you on Linux and etc. but use monolithic on OSX. To switch
91 to the monolithic build of wxWidgets just add this configure flag:
</p>
92 <pre class=
"literal-block">
95 <p>By default GTK2 will be selected if its development pacakge is
96 installed on your build system. To force the use of GTK
1.2.x
97 instead add this flag:
</p>
98 <pre class=
"literal-block">
101 <p>To make the wxWidgets build be unicode enabled (strongly
102 recommended if you are building with GTK2) then add the following.
103 When wxPython is unicode enabled then all strings that are passed
104 to wx functions and methods will first be converted to unicode
105 objects, and any 'strings' returned from wx functions and methods
106 will actually be unicode objects.:
</p>
107 <pre class=
"literal-block">
110 <p>Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/
2.5. You can use whatever
111 path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the
112 standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but
113 using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports
114 of wxWidgets
"installed
" and makes it easy to switch between them,
115 without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been
116 installed via an RPM or whatever. For the rest of the steps below
117 be sure to also substitute
"/opt/wx/
2.5" with whatever prefix you
118 choose for your build.
</p>
119 <p>If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with
120 wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for
121 example, to reduce dependencies on
3rd party libraries) then you
122 can add these flags to the configure command:
</p>
123 <pre class=
"literal-block">
124 --with-libjpeg=builtin \
125 --with-libpng=builtin \
126 --with-libtiff=builtin \
127 --with-zlib=builtin \
130 <li><p class=
"first">To build and install wxWidgets you could just use the
"make
"
131 command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets
132 libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it
133 all for me so I don't forget anything. This time it is called
134 ".make
" (I use the leading
".
" so when I do
<tt class=
"literal"><span class=
"pre">rm
</span> <span class=
"pre">-r
</span> <span class=
"pre">*
</span></tt> in my build
135 dir I don't lose my scripts too.) This is what it looks like:
</p>
136 <pre class=
"literal-block">
138 && make -C contrib/src/animate $* \
139 && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
140 && make -C contrib/src/stc $*
142 <p>So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set
143 the execute bit on .make first!:
</p>
144 <pre class=
"literal-block">
148 <p>When it's done you should have an installed set of files under
149 /opt/wx/
2.5 containing just wxWidgets. Now to use this version of
150 wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/
2.5/bin to the PATH and set
151 LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/
2.5/lib.
</p>
153 <li><p class=
"first">I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in
154 to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but you probably don't want to
155 use it as it's very cryptic and expects that you want to run SWIG,
156 so if you don't have the latest patched up version of SWIG then
157 you'll probably get stuck. So I'll just give the raw commands
159 <p>We're not going to install the development version of wxPython with
160 these commands, so it won't impact your already installed version
161 of the latest release. You'll be able test with this version when
162 you want to, and use the installed release version the rest of the
163 time. If you want to install the development version please read
165 <p>If you have more than one version of Python on your system then be
166 sure to use the version of Python that you want to use when running
167 wxPython programs to run the setup.py commands below. I'll be
169 <p>Make sure that the first wx-config found on the PATH is the one you
170 installed above, and then change to the $WXDIR/wxPython dir and
171 run the this command:
</p>
172 <pre class=
"literal-block">
174 python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug
176 <p>If your new wx-config script is not on the PATH, or there is some
177 other version of it found first, then you can add this to the
178 command line to ensure your new one is used instead:
</p>
179 <pre class=
"literal-block">
180 WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/
2.5/bin/wx-config
182 <p>By default setup.py will assume that you built wxWidgets to use
183 GTK2. If you built wxWidgets to use GTK
1.2.x then you should add
184 this flag to the command-line:
</p>
185 <pre class=
"literal-block">
188 <p>If you would like to do a Unicode enabled build (all strings sent
189 to or retruned from wx functions are Unicode objects) and your
190 wxWidgets was built with unicode enabled then add this flag:
</p>
191 <pre class=
"literal-block">
194 <p>If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
195 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
196 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags:
</p>
197 <pre class=
"literal-block">
198 USE_SWIG=
1 SWIG=/opt/swig/bin/swig
200 <p>If you get errors about being unable to find libGLU, wxGLCanvas
201 being undeclared, or something similar then you can add
202 BUILD_GLCANVAS=
0 to the setup.py command line to disable the
203 building of the glcanvas module.
</p>
204 <p>When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
205 wxPython and wx packages locally in $WXDIR/wxPython/wxPython and
206 $WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (
<tt class=
"literal"><span class=
"pre">*.so
</span></tt> files)
207 located in the wx package.
</p>
209 <li><p class=
"first">To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
210 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir located in the source tree. For
212 <pre class=
"literal-block">
213 export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/
2.5/lib
214 export PYTHONPATH=$WXDIR/wxPython
215 cd $WXDIR/wxPython/demo
218 <p>OS X NOTE: You need to use
"pythonw
" on the command line to run
219 wxPython applications. This version of the Python executable is
220 part of the Python Framework and is allowed to interact with the
221 display. You can also double click on a .py or a .pyw file from
222 the finder (assuming that the PythonLauncher app is associated with
223 these file extensions) and it will launch the Framework version of
224 Python for you. For information about creating Applicaiton Bundles
225 of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
</p>
226 <p>SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
227 wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
228 you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
229 code in setup.py and building again. Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
230 and uncomment the block containing it. The problem is that Sun's ld
231 does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.
</p>
235 <div class=
"section" id=
"building-on-windows">
236 <h1><a name=
"building-on-windows">Building on Windows
</a></h1>
237 <p>The Windows builds currently require the use of Microsoft Visual C++.
238 Theoretically, other compilers (such as mingw32 or the Borland
239 compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that
240 happen. If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if
241 there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension
242 modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py
243 to accommodate that. (And send the patches to me.) If you plan on
244 using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC
7.1) keep in mind that you'll also
245 have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with
246 that compiler because a different version of the C runtime library is
247 used. The Python executable that comes from PythonLabs and the
248 wxPython extensions that I distribute are built with MSVC
6 with all
249 the Service Packs applied. This policy will change with Python
2.4
250 and MSVC
7.1 will be used starting with that version.
</p>
251 <p>If you want to build a debuggable version of wxWidgets and wxPython you
252 will need to have also built a debug version of Python and any other
253 extension modules you need to use. You can tell if you have them
254 already if there is a _d in the file names, for example python_d.exe
255 or python23_d.dll. If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts
256 of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid)
257 version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with
259 <p>Starting with
2.5.3.0 wxPython can be built for either the monlithic
260 or the multi-lib wxWidgets builds. (Monolithic means that all the
261 core wxWidgets code is in one DLL, and multi-lib means that the core
262 code is divided into multiple DLLs.) To select which one to use
263 specify the MONOLITHIC flag for both the wxWidgets build and the
264 wxPython build as shown below, setting it to either
0 or
1.
</p>
265 <p>Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build
266 wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it. So if you have
267 bash (cygwin or probably MSYS too) or
4NT plus unix-like cat and sed
268 programs then there is a copy of my wxWidgets build scripts in
269 %WXDIR%\wxPython\distrib\msw. Just copy them to
270 %WXDIR%\build\msw and you can use them to do your build, otherwise
271 you can do everything by hand as described below. But if you do work
272 by hand and something doesn't seem to be working correctly please
273 refer to the build scripts to see what may need to be done
275 <p>The *.btm files are for
4NT and the others are for bash. They are:
</p>
276 <pre class=
"literal-block">
277 .make/.make.btm Builds the main lib and the needed contribs
278 .mymake/.mymake.btm Builds just one lib, use by .make
279 .makesetup.mk A makefile that will copy and edit setup.h
280 as needed for the different types of builds
282 <p>Okay. Here's what you've been waiting for, the instructions! Adapt
283 accordingly if you are using the bash shell.
</p>
285 <li><p class=
"first">Set an environment variable to the root of the wxWidgets source
286 tree. This is used by the makefiles:
</p>
287 <pre class=
"literal-block">
291 <li><p class=
"first">Copy setup0.h to setup.h:
</p>
292 <pre class=
"literal-block">
293 cd %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw
294 copy setup0.h setup.h
297 <li><p class=
"first">Edit %WXDIR%\include\wx\msw\setup.h and change a few settings:
</p>
298 <pre class=
"literal-block">
299 wxDIALOG_UNIT_COMPATIBILITY
0
300 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT
1
301 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING
1
302 wxUSE_DIALUP_MANAGER
0
305 wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT
0
309 <p>If you are using my build scripts then a few more settings will be
310 changed and then a copy of setup.h is placed in a subdir of
311 %WXWIN%\libvc_dll. If you are doing it by hand and making a
312 UNICODE build, then also change these:
</p>
313 <pre class=
"literal-block">
317 <p>If you are doing a
"hybrid
" build (which is the same as the
318 binaries that I release) then also change these:
</p>
319 <pre class=
"literal-block">
320 wxUSE_MEMORY_TRACING
0
321 wxUSE_DEBUG_CONTEXT
0
324 <li><p class=
"first">Make sure that %WXDIR%\lib\vc_dll directory is on the PATH. The
325 wxWidgets DLLs will end up there as part of the build and so you'll
326 need it on the PATH for them to be found at runtime.
</p>
328 <li><p class=
"first">Change to the %WXDIR%\build\msw directory
</p>
330 <p>cd %WXDIR%\build\msw
</p>
333 <li><p class=
"first">If using my scripts then use the .make.btm command to build
334 wxWidgets. It needs one command-line parameter which controls what
335 kind of build(s) to do. Use one of the following:
</p>
336 <pre class=
"literal-block">
337 debug Build debug version
338 hybrid Build hybrid version
339 both Both debug and hybrid
340 debug-uni Build a debug unicode library
341 hybrid-uni Hybrid unicode (see the pattern yet? ;-)
342 both-uni and finally both unicode libraries
345 <pre class=
"literal-block">
348 <p>You can also pass additional command line parameters as needed and
349 they will all be passed on to the nmake commands, for example to
350 clean up the build:
</p>
351 <pre class=
"literal-block">
354 <p>If
<em>not
</em> using my scripts then you can do it by hand by directly
355 executing nmake with a bunch of extra command line parameters.
356 The base set are:
</p>
357 <pre class=
"literal-block">
358 nmake -f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=
1 SHARED=
1 MONOLITHIC=
1 USE_OPENGL=
1
360 <p>If doing a debug build then add:
</p>
361 <pre class=
"literal-block">
364 <p>otherwise add these:
</p>
365 <pre class=
"literal-block">
366 DEBUG_FLAG=
1 CXXFLAGS=/D__NO_VC_CRTDBG__ WXDEBUGFLAG=h BUILD=release
368 <p>If doing a Unicode build then add these flags:
</p>
369 <pre class=
"literal-block">
372 <p>Now, from the %WXDIR%\build\msw directory run nmake with your
373 selection of command-line flags as described above. Repeat this
374 same command from the following directories in order to build the
375 contrib libraries:
</p>
376 <pre class=
"literal-block">
377 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\animate
378 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
379 %WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
382 <li><p class=
"first">When that is all done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs
383 and also some of the contribs DLLs. There should be a ton of DLLs
384 and lots of lib files and other stuff in %WXDIR%\lib\vc_dll.
</p>
386 <li><p class=
"first">Building wxPython on Windows is very similar to doing it for the
387 unix systems. We're not going to install the development version
388 of wxPython with these commands, so it won't impact your already
389 installed version of the latest release. You'll be able to test
390 with this version when you want to, and use the installed release
391 version the rest of the time. If you ever do want to install the
392 development version please refer to INSTALL.txt.
</p>
393 <p>Change to the %WXDIR%\wxPython dir and run the this command,
394 making sure that you use the version of python that you want to
395 build for (if you have more than one on your system) and to match
396 the MONOLITHIC flag with how you built wxWidgets:
</p>
397 <pre class=
"literal-block">
399 python setup.py build_ext --inplace MONOLITHIC=
1
401 <p>If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
402 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
403 where to find the new swig executable, so add these flags:
</p>
404 <pre class=
"literal-block">
405 USE_SWIG=
1 SWIG=e:\projects\SWIG-cvs\swig.exe
407 <p>If you built a Unicode version of wxWidgets and want to also build
408 the Unicode version of wxPython then add this flag:
</p>
409 <pre class=
"literal-block">
412 <p>If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to
413 build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the
414 command line. You should then end up with a set of
<tt class=
"literal"><span class=
"pre">*_d.pyd
</span></tt>
415 files in the wx package and you'll have to run
<tt class=
"literal"><span class=
"pre">python_d.exe
</span></tt> to
416 use them. The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.
</p>
417 <p>When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated
418 wxPython and wx packages locally in %WXDIR%/wxPython/wxPython and
419 %WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (
<tt class=
"literal"><span class=
"pre">*.pyd
</span></tt>
420 files) located in the wx package.
</p>
422 <li><p class=
"first">To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the
423 PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir in the CVS tree. For example:
</p>
424 <pre class=
"literal-block">
425 set PYTHONPATH=%WXDIR%\wxPython
426 cd %WXDIR\wxPython\demo