Building wxPython 2.5 for Development and Testing

Building wxPython 2.6 for Development and Testing

This file describes how I build wxWidgets and wxPython while doing development and testing, and is meant to help other people that want to do the same thing. I'll assume that you are using either a CVS snapshot from http://wxWidgets.org/snapshots/, a checkout from CVS, or -one of the released wxPythonSrc-2.5.* tarballs. I'll also assume that +one of the released wxPython-src-2.6.* tarballs. I'll also assume that you know your way around your system, the compiler, etc. and most importantly, that you know what you are doing! ;-)

If you want to also install the version of wxPython you build to be in @@ -25,29 +25,29 @@ you only use the instructions in this BUI will end up with a separate installation of wxPython and you can switch back and forth between this and the release version that you may already have installed.

If you want to make changes to any of the *.i files, (SWIG interface -definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or renamer -modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG. Either get -and build the current CVS version, or version 1.3.20, and then apply -the patches in wxPython/SWIG. See the README.txt in that dir for -details about each patch and also info about those that may already -have been applied to the SWIG sources. If you install this build of -SWIG to a location that is not on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere -with an existing SWIG install for example) then you can set a setup.py -command-line variable named SWIG to be the full path name of the -executable and the wxPython build will use it. See below for an -example.

If you want to make changes to any of the *.i files, (SWIG +interface definition files,) or to regenerate the extension sources or +renamer modules, then you will need an up to date version of SWIG, +plus some patches. Get the sources for version 1.3.24, and then apply +the patches in wxPython/SWIG and then build SWIG like normal. See the +README.txt in the wxPython/SWIG dir for details about each patch and +also info about those that may already have been applied to the SWIG +sources. If you install this build of SWIG to a location that is not +on the PATH (so it doesn't interfere with an existing SWIG install for +example) then you can set a setup.py command-line variable named SWIG +to be the full path name of the executable and the wxPython build will +use it. See below for an example.

In the text below I'll use WXDIR with environment variable syntax -(either $WXDIR or %WXDIR%) to refer to the top level directory were -your wxWidgerts and wxPython sources are located. It will equate to +(either $WXDIR or %WXDIR%) to refer to the top level directory where +your wxWidgets and wxPython sources are located. It will equate to whereever you checked out the wxWidgets module from CVS, or untarred -the wxPythonSrc tarball to. You can either substitute the $WXDIR text +the wxPython-src tarball to. You can either substitute the $WXDIR text below with your actual dir, or set the value in the environment and use it just like you see it below.

If you run into what appears to be compatibility issues between wxWidgets and wxPython while building wxPython, be sure you are using -the wxWidgets sources included with the wxPythonSrc tarball or the CVS -snapshot, and not a previously installed version or a version +the wxWidgets sources included with the wxPython-src tarball or the +CVS snapshot, and not a previously installed version or a version installed from one of the standard wxWidgets installers. With the "unstable" releases (have a odd-numbered minor release value, where the APIs are allowed to change) there are often significant @@ -71,44 +71,52 @@ before:

cd $WXDIR mkdir bld cd bld -../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.5 \ +../configure --prefix=/opt/wx/2.6 \ --with-gtk \ + --with-gnomeprint \ --with-opengl \ --enable-debug \ --enable-geometry \ --enable-sound --with-sdl \ + --enable-mediactrl \ --enable-display \ + --disable-debugreport \

On OS X of course you'll want to use --with-mac instead of ---with-gtk.

NOTE: Due to a recent change there is a dependency problem in the -multilib builds of wxWidgets on OSX, so I have switched to a -monolithic build on that platform. (IOW, all of the core code in -one shared library instead of several.) I would also expect other -unix builds to do just fine with a monolithic library, but I havn't -tested it in a while so your mileage may vary. Anyway, to switch +--with-gtk and --with-gnomeprint.

NOTE: Due to a recent change there is currently a dependency +problem in the multilib builds of wxWidgets on OSX, so I have +switched to using a monolithic build. That means that all of the +core wxWidgets code is placed in in one shared library instead of +several. wxPython can be used with either mode, so use whatever +suits you on Linux and etc. but use monolithic on OSX. To switch to the monolithic build of wxWidgets just add this configure flag:

 --enable-monolithic \

By default GTK2 will be selected if it is on your build system. To -force the use of GTK 1.2.x add this flag:

By default GTK 2.x will be used for the build. If you would rather +use GTK 1.2.x for some reason then you can force configure to use +it by changing the --with-gtk flag to specify it like this:

---disable-gtk2 \
+--with-gtk=1 \

To make the wxWidgets build be Unicode enabled (strongly -recommended if you are building with GTK2) then add:

To make the wxWidgets build be unicode enabled (strongly +recommended if you are building with GTK2) then add the following. +When wxPython is unicode enabled then all strings that are passed +to wx functions and methods will first be converted to unicode +objects, and any 'strings' returned from wx functions and methods +will actually be unicode objects.:

 --enable-unicode \

Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.5. You can use whatever +

Notice that I used a prefix of /opt/wx/2.6. You can use whatever path you want, such as a path in your HOME dir or even one of the standard prefix paths such as /usr or /usr/local if you like, but using /opt this way lets me easily have multiple versions and ports of wxWidgets "installed" and makes it easy to switch between them, without impacting any versions of wxWidgets that may have been installed via an RPM or whatever. For the rest of the steps below -be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.5" with whatever prefix you +be sure to also substitute "/opt/wx/2.6" with whatever prefix you choose for your build.

If you want to use the image and zlib libraries included with wxWidgets instead of those already installed on your system, (for @@ -125,14 +133,13 @@ can add these flags to the configure command:

command but there are other libraries besides the main wxWidgets libs that also need to be built so again I make a script to do it all for me so I don't forget anything. This time it is called -".make" (I use the leading "." so when I do rm -r * in my build +".make" (I use the leading "." so when I do rm -r * in my build dir I don't lose my scripts too.) This is what it looks like:

 make $* \
+    && make -C contrib/src/animate $* \
     && make -C contrib/src/gizmos $* \
-    && make -C contrib/src/ogl CXXFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0" $* \
-    && make -C contrib/src/stc $* \
-    && make -C contrib/src/xrc $* 
+    && make -C contrib/src/stc $*

So you just use .make as if it where make, but don't forget to set the execute bit on .make first!:

@@ -141,9 +148,9 @@ the execute bit on .make first!:

.make install

When it's done you should have an installed set of files under -/opt/wx/2.5 containing just wxWidgets. Now to use this version of -wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/2.5/bin to the PATH and set -LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.5/lib.

+/opt/wx/2.6 containing just wxWidgets. Now to use this version of +wxWidgets you just need to add /opt/wx/2.6/bin to the PATH and set +LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) to /opt/wx/2.6/lib.

I also have a script to help me build wxPython and it is checked in to the CVS as wxWidgets/wxPython/b, but you probably don't want to @@ -172,13 +179,13 @@ python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace --debug other version of it found first, then you can add this to the command line to ensure your new one is used instead:

-WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.5/bin/wx-config
+WX_CONFIG=/opt/wx/2.6/bin/wx-config

By default setup.py will assume that you built wxWidgets to use GTK2. If you built wxWidgets to use GTK 1.2.x then you should add this flag to the command-line:

-WXPORT=gtk2 
+WXPORT=gtk

If you would like to do a Unicode enabled build (all strings sent to or retruned from wx functions are Unicode objects) and your @@ -198,14 +205,14 @@ BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 to the setup.py command line to disable the building of the glcanvas module.

When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated wxPython and wx packages locally in $WXDIR/wxPython/wxPython and -$WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (*.so files) +$WXDIR/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (*.so files) located in the wx package.

To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the PYTHONPATH to the wxPython dir located in the source tree. For example:

-export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/2.5/lib
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/wx/2.6/lib
 export PYTHONPATH=$WXDIR/wxPython
 cd $WXDIR/wxPython/demo
 python2.3 demo.py
@@ -221,7 +228,7 @@ of your wxPython apps please see the wiki and the mail lists.
 SOLARIS NOTE: If you get unresolved symbol errors when importing
 wxPython and you are running on Solaris and building with gcc, then
 you may be able to work around the problem by uncommenting a bit of
-code in setup.py and building again.  Look for 'SunOS' in setup.py
+code in config.py and building again.  Look for 'SunOS' in config.py
 and uncomment the block containing it.  The problem is that Sun's ld
 does not automatically add libgcc to the link step.

@@ -235,7 +242,7 @@ compilers) can also be used but I've never done the work to make that happen. If you want to try that then first you'll want to find out if there are any tricks that have to be done to make Python extension modules using that compiler, and then make a few changes to setup.py -to accomodate that. (And send the patches to me.) If you plan on +to accommodate that. (And send the patches to me.) If you plan on using VisualStudio.Net (a.k.a. MSVC 7.1) keep in mind that you'll also have to build Python and any other extension modules that you use with that compiler because a different version of the C runtime library is @@ -251,6 +258,12 @@ or python23_d.dll. If you don't need to trace through the C/C++ parts of the code with the debugger then building the normal (or hybrid) version is fine, and you can use the regular python executables with it.

Starting with 2.5.3.0 wxPython can be built for either the monlithic +or the multi-lib wxWidgets builds. (Monolithic means that all the +core wxWidgets code is in one DLL, and multi-lib means that the core +code is divided into multiple DLLs.) To select which one to use +specify the MONOLITHIC flag for both the wxWidgets build and the +wxPython build as shown below, setting it to either 0 or 1.

Just like the unix versions I also use some scripts to help me build wxWidgets, but I use some non-standard stuff to do it. So if you have bash (cygwin or probably MSYS too) or 4NT plus unix-like cat and sed @@ -293,6 +306,7 @@ wxUSE_GLCANVAS 1 wxUSE_POSTSCRIPT 1 wxUSE_AFM_FOR_POSTSCRIPT 0 wxUSE_DISPLAY 1 +wxUSE_DEBUGREPORT 0

If you are using my build scripts then a few more settings will be changed and then a copy of setup.h is placed in a subdir of @@ -343,7 +357,7 @@ clean up the build:

executing nmake with a bunch of extra command line parameters. The base set are:

--f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=0 USE_OPENGL=1
+nmake -f makefile.vc OFFICIAL_BUILD=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 USE_OPENGL=1

If doing a debug build then add:

@@ -362,14 +376,9 @@ selection of command-line flags as described above.  Repeat this
 same command from the following directories in order to build the
 contrib libraries:
 -    %WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
-    %WXDIR%\contrib\build\xrc
-    %WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
-    %WXDIR%\contrib\build\ogl
-
-Note, that the ogl lib build will need an additional flag::
-
-    CPPFLAGS="-DwxUSE_DEPRECATED=0"
+%WXDIR%\contrib\build\animate
+%WXDIR%\contrib\build\gizmos
+%WXDIR%\contrib\build\stc
 
 
 When that is all done it will have built the main wxWidgets DLLs
@@ -385,10 +394,11 @@ version the rest of the time.  If you ever do want to install the
 development version please refer to INSTALL.txt.
 Change to the %WXDIR%\wxPython dir and run the this command,
 making sure that you use the version of python that you want to
-build for (if you have more than one on your system):
+build for (if you have more than one on your system) and to match
+the MONOLITHIC flag with how you built wxWidgets:
  cd %WXDIR%\wxPython
-python setup.py build_ext --inplace 
+python setup.py build_ext --inplace MONOLITHIC=1
 
 If you are wanting to have the source files regenerated with swig,
 then you need to turn on the USE_SWIG flag and optionally tell it
@@ -403,12 +413,12 @@ UNICODE=1

If you have a debug version of Python and wxWidgets and want to build a debug version of wxPython too, add the --debug flag to the -command line. You should then end up with a set of *_d.pyd -files in the wx package and you'll have to run python_d.exe to +command line. You should then end up with a set of *_d.pyd +files in the wx package and you'll have to run python_d.exe to use them. The debug and hybrid(release) versions can coexist.

When the setup.py command is done you should have fully populated wxPython and wx packages locally in %WXDIR%/wxPython/wxPython and -%WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (*.pyd +%WXDIR%/wxPython/wx, with all the extension modules (*.pyd files) located in the wx package.

To run code with the development version of wxPython, just set the