1This is Python version 2.7.2 2============================ 3 4Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 5Python Software Foundation. All rights reserved. 6 7Copyright (c) 2000 BeOpen.com. 8All rights reserved. 9 10Copyright (c) 1995-2001 Corporation for National Research Initiatives. 11All rights reserved. 12 13Copyright (c) 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum. 14All rights reserved. 15 16 17License information 18------------------- 19 20See the file "LICENSE" for information on the history of this 21software, terms & conditions for usage, and a DISCLAIMER OF ALL 22WARRANTIES. 23 24This Python distribution contains no GNU General Public Licensed 25(GPLed) code so it may be used in proprietary projects just like prior 26Python distributions. There are interfaces to some GNU code but these 27are entirely optional. 28 29All trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective 30holders. 31 32 33What's new in this release? 34--------------------------- 35 36See the file "Misc/NEWS". 37 38 39If you don't read instructions 40------------------------------ 41 42Congratulations on getting this far. :-) 43 44To start building right away (on UNIX): type "./configure" in the 45current directory and when it finishes, type "make". This creates an 46executable "./python"; to install in /usr/local, first do "su root" 47and then "make install". 48 49The section `Build instructions' below is still recommended reading. 50 51 52What is Python anyway? 53---------------------- 54 55Python is an interpreted, interactive object-oriented programming 56language suitable (amongst other uses) for distributed application 57development, scripting, numeric computing and system testing. Python 58is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Java, JavaScript, Visual Basic or 59Scheme. To find out more about what Python can do for you, point your 60browser to http://www.python.org/. 61 62 63How do I learn Python? 64---------------------- 65 66The official tutorial is still a good place to start; see 67http://docs.python.org/ for online and downloadable versions, as well 68as a list of other introductions, and reference documentation. 69 70There's a quickly growing set of books on Python. See 71http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonBooks for a list. 72 73 74Documentation 75------------- 76 77All documentation is provided online in a variety of formats. In 78order of importance for new users: Tutorial, Library Reference, 79Language Reference, Extending & Embedding, and the Python/C API. The 80Library Reference is especially of immense value since much of 81Python's power is described there, including the built-in data types 82and functions! 83 84All documentation is also available online at the Python web site 85(http://docs.python.org/, see below). It is available online for occasional 86reference, or can be downloaded in many formats for faster access. The 87documentation is downloadable in HTML, PostScript, PDF, LaTeX, and 88reStructuredText (2.6+) formats; the LaTeX and reStructuredText versions are 89primarily for documentation authors, translators, and people with special 90formatting requirements. 91 92 93Web sites 94--------- 95 96New Python releases and related technologies are published at 97http://www.python.org/. Come visit us! 98 99 100Newsgroups and Mailing Lists 101---------------------------- 102 103Read comp.lang.python, a high-volume discussion newsgroup about 104Python, or comp.lang.python.announce, a low-volume moderated newsgroup 105for Python-related announcements. These are also accessible as 106mailing lists: see http://www.python.org/community/lists/ for an 107overview of these and many other Python-related mailing lists. 108 109Archives are accessible via the Google Groups Usenet archive; see 110http://groups.google.com/. The mailing lists are also archived, see 111http://www.python.org/community/lists/ for details. 112 113 114Bug reports 115----------- 116 117To report or search for bugs, please use the Python Bug 118Tracker at http://bugs.python.org/. 119 120 121Patches and contributions 122------------------------- 123 124To submit a patch or other contribution, please use the Python Patch 125Manager at http://bugs.python.org/. Guidelines 126for patch submission may be found at http://www.python.org/dev/patches/. 127 128If you have a proposal to change Python, you may want to send an email to the 129comp.lang.python or python-ideas mailing lists for inital feedback. A Python 130Enhancement Proposal (PEP) may be submitted if your idea gains ground. All 131current PEPs, as well as guidelines for submitting a new PEP, are listed at 132http://www.python.org/dev/peps/. 133 134 135Questions 136--------- 137 138For help, if you can't find it in the manuals or on the web site, it's 139best to post to the comp.lang.python or the Python mailing list (see 140above). If you specifically don't want to involve the newsgroup or 141mailing list, send questions to [email protected] (a group of volunteers 142who answer questions as they can). The newsgroup is the most 143efficient way to ask public questions. 144 145 146Build instructions 147================== 148 149Before you can build Python, you must first configure it. 150Fortunately, the configuration and build process has been automated 151for Unix and Linux installations, so all you usually have to do is 152type a few commands and sit back. There are some platforms where 153things are not quite as smooth; see the platform specific notes below. 154If you want to build for multiple platforms sharing the same source 155tree, see the section on VPATH below. 156 157Start by running the script "./configure", which determines your 158system configuration and creates the Makefile. (It takes a minute or 159two -- please be patient!) You may want to pass options to the 160configure script -- see the section below on configuration options and 161variables. When it's done, you are ready to run make. 162 163To build Python, you normally type "make" in the toplevel directory. 164If you have changed the configuration, the Makefile may have to be 165rebuilt. In this case, you may have to run make again to correctly 166build your desired target. The interpreter executable is built in the 167top level directory. 168 169Once you have built a Python interpreter, see the subsections below on 170testing and installation. If you run into trouble, see the next 171section. 172 173Previous versions of Python used a manual configuration process that 174involved editing the file Modules/Setup. While this file still exists 175and manual configuration is still supported, it is rarely needed any 176more: almost all modules are automatically built as appropriate under 177guidance of the setup.py script, which is run by Make after the 178interpreter has been built. 179 180 181Troubleshooting 182--------------- 183 184See also the platform specific notes in the next section. 185 186If you run into other trouble, see the FAQ 187(http://www.python.org/doc/faq/) for hints on what can go wrong, and 188how to fix it. 189 190If you rerun the configure script with different options, remove all 191object files by running "make clean" before rebuilding. Believe it or 192not, "make clean" sometimes helps to clean up other inexplicable 193problems as well. Try it before sending in a bug report! 194 195If the configure script fails or doesn't seem to find things that 196should be there, inspect the config.log file. 197 198If you get a warning for every file about the -Olimit option being no 199longer supported, you can ignore it. There's no foolproof way to know 200whether this option is needed; all we can do is test whether it is 201accepted without error. On some systems, e.g. older SGI compilers, it 202is essential for performance (specifically when compiling ceval.c, 203which has more basic blocks than the default limit of 1000). If the 204warning bothers you, edit the Makefile to remove "-Olimit 1500" from 205the OPT variable. 206 207If you get failures in test_long, or sys.maxint gets set to -1, you 208are probably experiencing compiler bugs, usually related to 209optimization. This is a common problem with some versions of gcc, and 210some vendor-supplied compilers, which can sometimes be worked around 211by turning off optimization. Consider switching to stable versions 212(gcc 2.95.2, gcc 3.x, or contact your vendor.) 213 214From Python 2.0 onward, all Python C code is ANSI C. Compiling using 215old K&R-C-only compilers is no longer possible. ANSI C compilers are 216available for all modern systems, either in the form of updated 217compilers from the vendor, or one of the free compilers (gcc). 218 219If "make install" fails mysteriously during the "compiling the library" 220step, make sure that you don't have any of the PYTHONPATH or PYTHONHOME 221environment variables set, as they may interfere with the newly built 222executable which is compiling the library. 223 224Unsupported systems 225------------------- 226 227A number of systems are not supported in Python 2.7 anymore. Some 228support code is still present, but will be removed in later versions. 229If you still need to use current Python versions on these systems, 230please send a message to [email protected] indicating that you 231volunteer to support this system. For a more detailed discussion 232regarding no-longer-supported and resupporting platforms, as well 233as a list of platforms that became or will be unsupported, see PEP 11. 234 235More specifically, the following systems are not supported any 236longer: 237- SunOS 4 238- DYNIX 239- dgux 240- Minix 241- NeXT 242- Irix 4 and --with-sgi-dl 243- Linux 1 244- Systems defining __d6_pthread_create (configure.in) 245- Systems defining PY_PTHREAD_D4, PY_PTHREAD_D6, 246 or PY_PTHREAD_D7 in thread_pthread.h 247- Systems using --with-dl-dld 248- Systems using --without-universal-newlines 249- MacOS 9 250- Systems using --with-wctype-functions 251- Win9x, WinME 252 253 254Platform specific notes 255----------------------- 256 257(Some of these may no longer apply. If you find you can build Python 258on these platforms without the special directions mentioned here, 259submit a documentation bug report to SourceForge (see Bug Reports 260above) so we can remove them!) 261 262Unix platforms: If your vendor still ships (and you still use) Berkeley DB 263 1.85 you will need to edit Modules/Setup to build the bsddb185 264 module and add a line to sitecustomize.py which makes it the 265 default. In Modules/Setup a line like 266 267 bsddb185 bsddbmodule.c 268 269 should work. (You may need to add -I, -L or -l flags to direct the 270 compiler and linker to your include files and libraries.) 271 272XXX I think this next bit is out of date: 273 27464-bit platforms: The modules audioop, and imageop don't work. 275 The setup.py script disables them on 64-bit installations. 276 Don't try to enable them in the Modules/Setup file. They 277 contain code that is quite wordsize sensitive. (If you have a 278 fix, let us know!) 279 280Solaris: When using Sun's C compiler with threads, at least on Solaris 281 2.5.1, you need to add the "-mt" compiler option (the simplest 282 way is probably to specify the compiler with this option as 283 the "CC" environment variable when running the configure 284 script). 285 286 When using GCC on Solaris, beware of binutils 2.13 or GCC 287 versions built using it. This mistakenly enables the 288 -zcombreloc option which creates broken shared libraries on 289 Solaris. binutils 2.12 works, and the binutils maintainers 290 are aware of the problem. Binutils 2.13.1 only partially 291 fixed things. It appears that 2.13.2 solves the problem 292 completely. This problem is known to occur with Solaris 2.7 293 and 2.8, but may also affect earlier and later versions of the 294 OS. 295 296 When the dynamic loader complains about errors finding shared 297 libraries, such as 298 299 ld.so.1: ./python: fatal: libstdc++.so.5: open failed: 300 No such file or directory 301 302 you need to first make sure that the library is available on 303 your system. Then, you need to instruct the dynamic loader how 304 to find it. You can choose any of the following strategies: 305 306 1. When compiling Python, set LD_RUN_PATH to the directories 307 containing missing libraries. 308 2. When running Python, set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to these directories. 309 3. Use crle(8) to extend the search path of the loader. 310 4. Modify the installed GCC specs file, adding -R options into the 311 *link: section. 312 313 The complex object fails to compile on Solaris 10 with gcc 3.4 (at 314 least up to 3.4.3). To work around it, define Py_HUGE_VAL as 315 HUGE_VAL(), e.g.: 316 317 make CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()" -I. -I$(srcdir)/Include' 318 ./python setup.py CPPFLAGS='-D"Py_HUGE_VAL=HUGE_VAL()"' 319 320Linux: A problem with threads and fork() was tracked down to a bug in 321 the pthreads code in glibc version 2.0.5; glibc version 2.0.7 322 solves the problem. This causes the popen2 test to fail; 323 problem and solution reported by Pablo Bleyer. 324 325Red Hat Linux: Red Hat 9 built Python2.2 in UCS-4 mode and hacked 326 Tcl to support it. To compile Python2.3 with Tkinter, you will 327 need to pass --enable-unicode=ucs4 flag to ./configure. 328 329 There's an executable /usr/bin/python which is Python 330 1.5.2 on most older Red Hat installations; several key Red Hat tools 331 require this version. Python 2.1.x may be installed as 332 /usr/bin/python2. The Makefile installs Python as 333 /usr/local/bin/python, which may or may not take precedence 334 over /usr/bin/python, depending on how you have set up $PATH. 335 336FreeBSD 3.x and probably platforms with NCurses that use libmytinfo or 337 similar: When using cursesmodule, the linking is not done in 338 the correct order with the defaults. Remove "-ltermcap" from 339 the readline entry in Setup, and use as curses entry: "curses 340 cursesmodule.c -lmytinfo -lncurses -ltermcap" - "mytinfo" (so 341 called on FreeBSD) should be the name of the auxiliary library 342 required on your platform. Normally, it would be linked 343 automatically, but not necessarily in the correct order. 344 345BSDI: BSDI versions before 4.1 have known problems with threads, 346 which can cause strange errors in a number of modules (for 347 instance, the 'test_signal' test script will hang forever.) 348 Turning off threads (with --with-threads=no) or upgrading to 349 BSDI 4.1 solves this problem. 350 351DEC Unix: Run configure with --with-dec-threads, or with 352 --with-threads=no if no threads are desired (threads are on by 353 default). When using GCC, it is possible to get an internal 354 compiler error if optimization is used. This was reported for 355 GCC 2.7.2.3 on selectmodule.c. Manually compile the affected 356 file without optimization to solve the problem. 357 358DEC Ultrix: compile with GCC to avoid bugs in the native compiler, 359 and pass SHELL=/bin/sh5 to Make when installing. 360 361AIX: A complete overhaul of the shared library support is now in 362 place. See Misc/AIX-NOTES for some notes on how it's done. 363 (The optimizer bug reported at this place in previous releases 364 has been worked around by a minimal code change.) If you get 365 errors about pthread_* functions, during compile or during 366 testing, try setting CC to a thread-safe (reentrant) compiler, 367 like "cc_r". For full C++ module support, set CC="xlC_r" (or 368 CC="xlC" without thread support). 369 370AIX 5.3: To build a 64-bit version with IBM's compiler, I used the 371 following: 372 373 export PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/vacpp/bin 374 ./configure --with-gcc="xlc_r -q64" --with-cxx="xlC_r -q64" \ 375 --disable-ipv6 AR="ar -X64" 376 make 377 378HP-UX: When using threading, you may have to add -D_REENTRANT to the 379 OPT variable in the top-level Makefile; reported by Pat Knight, 380 this seems to make a difference (at least for HP-UX 10.20) 381 even though pyconfig.h defines it. This seems unnecessary when 382 using HP/UX 11 and later - threading seems to work "out of the 383 box". 384 385HP-UX ia64: When building on the ia64 (Itanium) platform using HP's 386 compiler, some experience has shown that the compiler's 387 optimiser produces a completely broken version of python 388 (see http://bugs.python.org/814976). To work around this, 389 edit the Makefile and remove -O from the OPT line. 390 391 To build a 64-bit executable on an Itanium 2 system using HP's 392 compiler, use these environment variables: 393 394 CC=cc 395 CXX=aCC 396 BASECFLAGS="+DD64" 397 LDFLAGS="+DD64 -lxnet" 398 399 and call configure as: 400 401 ./configure --without-gcc 402 403 then *unset* the environment variables again before running 404 make. (At least one of these flags causes the build to fail 405 if it remains set.) You still have to edit the Makefile and 406 remove -O from the OPT line. 407 408HP PA-RISC 2.0: A recent bug report (http://bugs.python.org/546117) 409 suggests that the C compiler in this 64-bit system has bugs 410 in the optimizer that break Python. Compiling without 411 optimization solves the problems. 412 413SCO: The following apply to SCO 3 only; Python builds out of the box 414 on SCO 5 (or so we've heard). 415 416 1) Everything works much better if you add -U__STDC__ to the 417 defs. This is because all the SCO header files are broken. 418 Anything that isn't mentioned in the C standard is 419 conditionally excluded when __STDC__ is defined. 420 421 2) Due to the U.S. export restrictions, SCO broke the crypt 422 stuff out into a separate library, libcrypt_i.a so the LIBS 423 needed be set to: 424 425 LIBS=' -lsocket -lcrypt_i' 426 427UnixWare: There are known bugs in the math library of the system, as well as 428 problems in the handling of threads (calling fork in one 429 thread may interrupt system calls in others). Therefore, test_math and 430 tests involving threads will fail until those problems are fixed. 431 432QNX: Chris Herborth ([email protected]) writes: 433 configure works best if you use GNU bash; a port is available on 434 ftp.qnx.com in /usr/free. I used the following process to build, 435 test and install Python 1.5.x under QNX: 436 437 1) CONFIG_SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash CC=cc RANLIB=: \ 438 ./configure --verbose --without-gcc --with-libm="" 439 440 2) edit Modules/Setup to activate everything that makes sense for 441 your system... tested here at QNX with the following modules: 442 443 array, audioop, binascii, cPickle, cStringIO, cmath, 444 crypt, curses, errno, fcntl, gdbm, grp, imageop, 445 _locale, math, md5, new, operator, parser, pcre, 446 posix, pwd, readline, regex, reop, 447 select, signal, socket, soundex, strop, struct, 448 syslog, termios, time, timing, zlib, audioop, imageop 449 450 3) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash 451 452 or, if you feel the need for speed: 453 454 make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash OPT="-5 -Oil+nrt" 455 456 4) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash test 457 458 Using GNU readline 2.2 seems to behave strangely, but I 459 think that's a problem with my readline 2.2 port. :-\ 460 461 5) make SHELL=/usr/local/bin/bash install 462 463 If you get SIGSEGVs while running Python (I haven't yet, but 464 I've only run small programs and the test cases), you're 465 probably running out of stack; the default 32k could be a 466 little tight. To increase the stack size, edit the Makefile 467 to read: LDFLAGS = -N 48k 468 469BeOS: See Misc/BeOS-NOTES for notes about compiling/installing 470 Python on BeOS R3 or later. Note that only the PowerPC 471 platform is supported for R3; both PowerPC and x86 are 472 supported for R4. 473 474Cray T3E: Mark Hadfield ([email protected]) writes: 475 Python can be built satisfactorily on a Cray T3E but based on 476 my experience with the NIWA T3E (2002-05-22, version 2.2.1) 477 there are a few bugs and gotchas. For more information see a 478 thread on comp.lang.python in May 2002 entitled "Building 479 Python on Cray T3E". 480 481 1) Use Cray's cc and not gcc. The latter was reported not to 482 work by Konrad Hinsen. It may work now, but it may not. 483 484 2) To set sys.platform to something sensible, pass the 485 following environment variable to the configure script: 486 487 MACHDEP=unicosmk 488 489 2) Run configure with option "--enable-unicode=ucs4". 490 491 3) The Cray T3E does not support dynamic linking, so extension 492 modules have to be built by adding (or uncommenting) lines 493 in Modules/Setup. The minimum set of modules is 494 495 posix, new, _sre, unicodedata 496 497 On NIWA's vanilla T3E system the following have also been 498 included successfully: 499 500 _codecs, _locale, _socket, _symtable, _testcapi, _weakref 501 array, binascii, cmath, cPickle, crypt, cStringIO, dbm 502 errno, fcntl, grp, math, md5, operator, parser, pcre, pwd 503 regex, rotor, select, struct, strop, syslog, termios 504 time, timing, xreadlines 505 506 4) Once the python executable and library have been built, make 507 will execute setup.py, which will attempt to build remaining 508 extensions and link them dynamically. Each of these attempts 509 will fail but should not halt the make process. This is 510 normal. 511 512 5) Running "make test" uses a lot of resources and causes 513 problems on our system. You might want to try running tests 514 singly or in small groups. 515 516SGI: SGI's standard "make" utility (/bin/make or /usr/bin/make) 517 does not check whether a command actually changed the file it 518 is supposed to build. This means that whenever you say "make" 519 it will redo the link step. The remedy is to use SGI's much 520 smarter "smake" utility (/usr/sbin/smake), or GNU make. If 521 you set the first line of the Makefile to #!/usr/sbin/smake 522 smake will be invoked by make (likewise for GNU make). 523 524 WARNING: There are bugs in the optimizer of some versions of 525 SGI's compilers that can cause bus errors or other strange 526 behavior, especially on numerical operations. To avoid this, 527 try building with "make OPT=". 528 529OS/2: If you are running Warp3 or Warp4 and have IBM's VisualAge C/C++ 530 compiler installed, just change into the pc\os2vacpp directory 531 and type NMAKE. Threading and sockets are supported by default 532 in the resulting binaries of PYTHON15.DLL and PYTHON.EXE. 533 534Reliant UNIX: The thread support does not compile on Reliant UNIX, and 535 there is a (minor) problem in the configure script for that 536 platform as well. This should be resolved in time for a 537 future release. 538 539MacOSX: The tests will crash on both 10.1 and 10.2 with SEGV in 540 test_re and test_sre due to the small default stack size. If 541 you set the stack size to 2048 before doing a "make test" the 542 failure can be avoided. If you're using the tcsh or csh shells, 543 use "limit stacksize 2048" and for the bash shell (the default 544 as of OSX 10.3), use "ulimit -s 2048". 545 546 On naked Darwin you may want to add the configure option 547 "--disable-toolbox-glue" to disable the glue code for the Carbon 548 interface modules. The modules themselves are currently only built 549 if you add the --enable-framework option, see below. 550 551 On a clean OSX /usr/local does not exist. Do a 552 "sudo mkdir -m 775 /usr/local" 553 before you do a make install. It is probably not a good idea to 554 do "sudo make install" which installs everything as superuser, 555 as this may later cause problems when installing distutils-based 556 additions. 557 558 Some people have reported problems building Python after using "fink" 559 to install additional unix software. Disabling fink (remove all 560 references to /sw from your .profile or .login) should solve this. 561 562 You may want to try the configure option "--enable-framework" 563 which installs Python as a framework. The location can be set 564 as argument to the --enable-framework option (default 565 /Library/Frameworks). A framework install is probably needed if you 566 want to use any Aqua-based GUI toolkit (whether Tkinter, wxPython, 567 Carbon, Cocoa or anything else). 568 569 You may also want to try the configure option "--enable-universalsdk" 570 which builds Python as a universal binary with support for the 571 i386 and PPC architetures. This requires Xcode 2.1 or later to build. 572 573 See Mac/README for more information on framework and 574 universal builds. 575 576Cygwin: With recent (relative to the time of writing, 2001-12-19) 577 Cygwin installations, there are problems with the interaction 578 of dynamic linking and fork(). This manifests itself in build 579 failures during the execution of setup.py. 580 581 There are two workarounds that both enable Python (albeit 582 without threading support) to build and pass all tests on 583 NT/2000 (and most likely XP as well, though reports of testing 584 on XP would be appreciated). 585 586 The workarounds: 587 588 (a) the band-aid fix is to link the _socket module statically 589 rather than dynamically (which is the default). 590 591 To do this, run "./configure --with-threads=no" including any 592 other options you need (--prefix, etc.). Then in Modules/Setup 593 uncomment the lines: 594 595 #SSL=/usr/local/ssl 596 #_socket socketmodule.c \ 597 # -DUSE_SSL -I$(SSL)/include -I$(SSL)/include/openssl \ 598 # -L$(SSL)/lib -lssl -lcrypto 599 600 and remove "local/" from the SSL variable. Finally, just run 601 "make"! 602 603 (b) The "proper" fix is to rebase the Cygwin DLLs to prevent 604 base address conflicts. Details on how to do this can be 605 found in the following mail: 606 607 http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2001-12/msg00894.html 608 609 It is hoped that a version of this solution will be 610 incorporated into the Cygwin distribution fairly soon. 611 612 Two additional problems: 613 614 (1) Threading support should still be disabled due to a known 615 bug in Cygwin pthreads that causes test_threadedtempfile to 616 hang. 617 618 (2) The _curses module does not build. This is a known 619 Cygwin ncurses problem that should be resolved the next time 620 that this package is released. 621 622 On older versions of Cygwin, test_poll may hang and test_strftime 623 may fail. 624 625 The situation on 9X/Me is not accurately known at present. 626 Some time ago, there were reports that the following 627 regression tests failed: 628 629 test_pwd 630 test_select (hang) 631 test_socket 632 633 Due to the test_select hang on 9X/Me, one should run the 634 regression test using the following: 635 636 make TESTOPTS='-l -x test_select' test 637 638 News regarding these platforms with more recent Cygwin 639 versions would be appreciated! 640 641Windows: When executing Python scripts on the command line using file type 642 associations (i.e. starting "script.py" instead of "python script.py"), 643 redirects may not work unless you set a specific registry key. See 644 the Knowledge Base article <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321788>. 645 646 647Configuring the bsddb and dbm modules 648------------------------------------- 649 650Beginning with Python version 2.3, the PyBsddb package 651<http://pybsddb.sf.net/> was adopted into Python as the bsddb package, 652exposing a set of package-level functions which provide 653backwards-compatible behavior. Only versions 3.3 through 4.4 of 654Sleepycat's libraries provide the necessary API, so older versions 655aren't supported through this interface. The old bsddb module has 656been retained as bsddb185, though it is not built by default. Users 657wishing to use it will have to tweak Modules/Setup to build it. The 658dbm module will still be built against the Sleepycat libraries if 659other preferred alternatives (ndbm, gdbm) are not found. 660 661Building the sqlite3 module 662--------------------------- 663 664To build the sqlite3 module, you'll need the sqlite3 or libsqlite3 665packages installed, including the header files. Many modern operating 666systems distribute the headers in a separate package to the library - 667often it will be the same name as the main package, but with a -dev or 668-devel suffix. 669 670The version of pysqlite2 that's including in Python needs sqlite3 3.0.8 671or later. setup.py attempts to check that it can find a correct version. 672 673Configuring threads 674------------------- 675 676As of Python 2.0, threads are enabled by default. If you wish to 677compile without threads, or if your thread support is broken, pass the 678--with-threads=no switch to configure. Unfortunately, on some 679platforms, additional compiler and/or linker options are required for 680threads to work properly. Below is a table of those options, 681collected by Bill Janssen. We would love to automate this process 682more, but the information below is not enough to write a patch for the 683configure.in file, so manual intervention is required. If you patch 684the configure.in file and are confident that the patch works, please 685send in the patch. (Don't bother patching the configure script itself 686-- it is regenerated each time the configure.in file changes.) 687 688Compiler switches for threads 689............................. 690 691The definition of _REENTRANT should be configured automatically, if 692that does not work on your system, or if _REENTRANT is defined 693incorrectly, please report that as a bug. 694 695 OS/Compiler/threads Switches for use with threads 696 (POSIX is draft 10, DCE is draft 4) compile & link 697 698 SunOS 5.{1-5}/{gcc,SunPro cc}/solaris -mt 699 SunOS 5.5/{gcc,SunPro cc}/POSIX (nothing) 700 DEC OSF/1 3.x/cc/DCE -threads 701 ([email protected]) 702 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/DCE -threads 703 ([email protected]) 704 Digital UNIX 4.x/cc/POSIX -pthread 705 ([email protected]) 706 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r/d7 (nothing) 707 ([email protected]) 708 AIX 4.1.4/cc_r4/DCE (nothing) 709 ([email protected]) 710 IRIX 6.2/cc/POSIX (nothing) 711 ([email protected]) 712 713 714Linker (ld) libraries and flags for threads 715........................................... 716 717 OS/threads Libraries/switches for use with threads 718 719 SunOS 5.{1-5}/solaris -lthread 720 SunOS 5.5/POSIX -lpthread 721 DEC OSF/1 3.x/DCE -lpthreads -lmach -lc_r -lc 722 ([email protected]) 723 Digital UNIX 4.x/DCE -lpthreads -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc 724 ([email protected]) 725 Digital UNIX 4.x/POSIX -lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc 726 ([email protected]) 727 AIX 4.1.4/{draft7,DCE} (nothing) 728 ([email protected]) 729 IRIX 6.2/POSIX -lpthread 730 ([email protected]) 731 732 733Building a shared libpython 734--------------------------- 735 736Starting with Python 2.3, the majority of the interpreter can be built 737into a shared library, which can then be used by the interpreter 738executable, and by applications embedding Python. To enable this feature, 739configure with --enable-shared. 740 741If you enable this feature, the same object files will be used to create 742a static library. In particular, the static library will contain object 743files using position-independent code (PIC) on platforms where PIC flags 744are needed for the shared library. 745 746 747Configuring additional built-in modules 748--------------------------------------- 749 750Starting with Python 2.1, the setup.py script at the top of the source 751distribution attempts to detect which modules can be built and 752automatically compiles them. Autodetection doesn't always work, so 753you can still customize the configuration by editing the Modules/Setup 754file; but this should be considered a last resort. The rest of this 755section only applies if you decide to edit the Modules/Setup file. 756You also need this to enable static linking of certain modules (which 757is needed to enable profiling on some systems). 758 759This file is initially copied from Setup.dist by the configure script; 760if it does not exist yet, create it by copying Modules/Setup.dist 761yourself (configure will never overwrite it). Never edit Setup.dist 762-- always edit Setup or Setup.local (see below). Read the comments in 763the file for information on what kind of edits are allowed. When you 764have edited Setup in the Modules directory, the interpreter will 765automatically be rebuilt the next time you run make (in the toplevel 766directory). 767 768Many useful modules can be built on any Unix system, but some optional 769modules can't be reliably autodetected. Often the quickest way to 770determine whether a particular module works or not is to see if it 771will build: enable it in Setup, then if you get compilation or link 772errors, disable it -- you're either missing support or need to adjust 773the compilation and linking parameters for that module. 774 775On SGI IRIX, there are modules that interface to many SGI specific 776system libraries, e.g. the GL library and the audio hardware. These 777modules will not be built by the setup.py script. 778 779In addition to the file Setup, you can also edit the file Setup.local. 780(the makesetup script processes both). You may find it more 781convenient to edit Setup.local and leave Setup alone. Then, when 782installing a new Python version, you can copy your old Setup.local 783file. 784 785 786Setting the optimization/debugging options 787------------------------------------------ 788 789If you want or need to change the optimization/debugging options for 790the C compiler, assign to the OPT variable on the toplevel make 791command; e.g. "make OPT=-g" will build a debugging version of Python 792on most platforms. The default is OPT=-O; a value for OPT in the 793environment when the configure script is run overrides this default 794(likewise for CC; and the initial value for LIBS is used as the base 795set of libraries to link with). 796 797When compiling with GCC, the default value of OPT will also include 798the -Wall and -Wstrict-prototypes options. 799 800Additional debugging code to help debug memory management problems can 801be enabled by using the --with-pydebug option to the configure script. 802 803For flags that change binary compatibility, use the EXTRA_CFLAGS 804variable. 805 806 807Profiling 808--------- 809 810If you want C profiling turned on, the easiest way is to run configure 811with the CC environment variable to the necessary compiler 812invocation. For example, on Linux, this works for profiling using 813gprof(1): 814 815 CC="gcc -pg" ./configure 816 817Note that on Linux, gprof apparently does not work for shared 818libraries. The Makefile/Setup mechanism can be used to compile and 819link most extension modules statically. 820 821 822Coverage checking 823----------------- 824 825For C coverage checking using gcov, run "make coverage". This will 826build a Python binary with profiling activated, and a ".gcno" and 827".gcda" file for every source file compiled with that option. With 828the built binary, now run the code whose coverage you want to check. 829Then, you can see coverage statistics for each individual source file 830by running gcov, e.g. 831 832 gcov -o Modules zlibmodule 833 834This will create a "zlibmodule.c.gcov" file in the current directory 835containing coverage info for that source file. 836 837This works only for source files statically compiled into the 838executable; use the Makefile/Setup mechanism to compile and link 839extension modules you want to coverage-check statically. 840 841 842Testing 843------- 844 845To test the interpreter, type "make test" in the top-level directory. 846This runs the test set twice (once with no compiled files, once with 847the compiled files left by the previous test run). The test set 848produces some output. You can generally ignore the messages about 849skipped tests due to optional features which can't be imported. 850If a message is printed about a failed test or a traceback or core 851dump is produced, something is wrong. On some Linux systems (those 852that are not yet using glibc 6), test_strftime fails due to a 853non-standard implementation of strftime() in the C library. Please 854ignore this, or upgrade to glibc version 6. 855 856By default, tests are prevented from overusing resources like disk space and 857memory. To enable these tests, run "make testall". 858 859IMPORTANT: If the tests fail and you decide to mail a bug report, 860*don't* include the output of "make test". It is useless. Run the 861failing test manually, as follows: 862 863 ./python Lib/test/regrtest.py -v test_whatever 864 865(substituting the top of the source tree for '.' if you built in a 866different directory). This runs the test in verbose mode. 867 868 869Installing 870---------- 871 872To install the Python binary, library modules, shared library modules 873(see below), include files, configuration files, and the manual page, 874just type 875 876 make install 877 878This will install all platform-independent files in subdirectories of 879the directory given with the --prefix option to configure or to the 880`prefix' Make variable (default /usr/local). All binary and other 881platform-specific files will be installed in subdirectories if the 882directory given by --exec-prefix or the `exec_prefix' Make variable 883(defaults to the --prefix directory) is given. 884 885If DESTDIR is set, it will be taken as the root directory of the 886installation, and files will be installed into $(DESTDIR)$(prefix), 887$(DESTDIR)$(exec_prefix), etc. 888 889All subdirectories created will have Python's version number in their 890name, e.g. the library modules are installed in 891"/usr/local/lib/python<version>/" by default, where <version> is the 892<major>.<minor> release number (e.g. "2.1"). The Python binary is 893installed as "python<version>" and a hard link named "python" is 894created. The only file not installed with a version number in its 895name is the manual page, installed as "/usr/local/man/man1/python.1" 896by default. 897 898If you want to install multiple versions of Python see the section below 899entitled "Installing multiple versions". 900 901The only thing you may have to install manually is the Python mode for 902Emacs found in Misc/python-mode.el. (But then again, more recent 903versions of Emacs may already have it.) Follow the instructions that 904came with Emacs for installation of site-specific files. 905 906On Mac OS X, if you have configured Python with --enable-framework, you 907should use "make frameworkinstall" to do the installation. Note that this 908installs the Python executable in a place that is not normally on your 909PATH, you may want to set up a symlink in /usr/local/bin. 910 911 912Installing multiple versions 913---------------------------- 914 915On Unix and Mac systems if you intend to install multiple versions of Python 916using the same installation prefix (--prefix argument to the configure 917script) you must take care that your primary python executable is not 918overwritten by the installation of a different version. All files and 919directories installed using "make altinstall" contain the major and minor 920version and can thus live side-by-side. "make install" also creates 921${prefix}/bin/python which refers to ${prefix}/bin/pythonX.Y. If you intend 922to install multiple versions using the same prefix you must decide which 923version (if any) is your "primary" version. Install that version using 924"make install". Install all other versions using "make altinstall". 925 926For example, if you want to install Python 2.5, 2.6 and 3.0 with 2.6 being 927the primary version, you would execute "make install" in your 2.6 build 928directory and "make altinstall" in the others. 929 930 931Configuration options and variables 932----------------------------------- 933 934Some special cases are handled by passing options to the configure 935script. 936 937WARNING: if you rerun the configure script with different options, you 938must run "make clean" before rebuilding. Exceptions to this rule: 939after changing --prefix or --exec-prefix, all you need to do is remove 940Modules/getpath.o. 941 942--with(out)-gcc: The configure script uses gcc (the GNU C compiler) if 943 it finds it. If you don't want this, or if this compiler is 944 installed but broken on your platform, pass the option 945 --without-gcc. You can also pass "CC=cc" (or whatever the 946 name of the proper C compiler is) in the environment, but the 947 advantage of using --without-gcc is that this option is 948 remembered by the config.status script for its --recheck 949 option. 950 951--prefix, --exec-prefix: If you want to install the binaries and the 952 Python library somewhere else than in /usr/local/{bin,lib}, 953 you can pass the option --prefix=DIRECTORY; the interpreter 954 binary will be installed as DIRECTORY/bin/python and the 955 library files as DIRECTORY/lib/python/*. If you pass 956 --exec-prefix=DIRECTORY (as well) this overrides the 957 installation prefix for architecture-dependent files (like the 958 interpreter binary). Note that --prefix=DIRECTORY also 959 affects the default module search path (sys.path), when 960 Modules/config.c is compiled. Passing make the option 961 prefix=DIRECTORY (and/or exec_prefix=DIRECTORY) overrides the 962 prefix set at configuration time; this may be more convenient 963 than re-running the configure script if you change your mind 964 about the install prefix. 965 966--with-readline: This option is no longer supported. GNU 967 readline is automatically enabled by setup.py when present. 968 969--with-threads: On most Unix systems, you can now use multiple 970 threads, and support for this is enabled by default. To 971 disable this, pass --with-threads=no. If the library required 972 for threads lives in a peculiar place, you can use 973 --with-thread=DIRECTORY. IMPORTANT: run "make clean" after 974 changing (either enabling or disabling) this option, or you 975 will get link errors! Note: for DEC Unix use 976 --with-dec-threads instead. 977 978--with-sgi-dl: On SGI IRIX 4, dynamic loading of extension modules is 979 supported by the "dl" library by Jack Jansen, which is 980 ftp'able from ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-1.6.tar.Z. 981 This is enabled (after you've ftp'ed and compiled the dl 982 library) by passing --with-sgi-dl=DIRECTORY where DIRECTORY 983 is the absolute pathname of the dl library. (Don't bother on 984 IRIX 5, it already has dynamic linking using SunOS style 985 shared libraries.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. 986 987--with-dl-dld: Dynamic loading of modules is rumored to be supported 988 on some other systems: VAX (Ultrix), Sun3 (SunOS 3.4), Sequent 989 Symmetry (Dynix), and Atari ST. This is done using a 990 combination of the GNU dynamic loading package 991 (ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dl-dld-1.1.tar.Z) and an 992 emulation of the SGI dl library mentioned above (the emulation 993 can be found at 994 ftp://ftp.cwi.nl/pub/dynload/dld-3.2.3.tar.Z). To 995 enable this, ftp and compile both libraries, then call 996 configure, passing it the option 997 --with-dl-dld=DL_DIRECTORY,DLD_DIRECTORY where DL_DIRECTORY is 998 the absolute pathname of the dl emulation library and 999 DLD_DIRECTORY is the absolute pathname of the GNU dld library. 1000 (Don't bother on SunOS 4 or 5, they already have dynamic 1001 linking using shared libraries.) THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. 1002 1003--with-libm, --with-libc: It is possible to specify alternative 1004 versions for the Math library (default -lm) and the C library 1005 (default the empty string) using the options 1006 --with-libm=STRING and --with-libc=STRING, respectively. For 1007 example, if your system requires that you pass -lc_s to the C 1008 compiler to use the shared C library, you can pass 1009 --with-libc=-lc_s. These libraries are passed after all other 1010 libraries, the C library last. 1011 1012--with-libs='libs': Add 'libs' to the LIBS that the python interpreter 1013 is linked against. 1014 1015--with-cxx-main=<compiler>: If you plan to use C++ extension modules, 1016 then -- on some platforms -- you need to compile python's main() 1017 function with the C++ compiler. With this option, make will use 1018 <compiler> to compile main() *and* to link the python executable. 1019 It is likely that the resulting executable depends on the C++ 1020 runtime library of <compiler>. (The default is --without-cxx-main.) 1021 1022 There are platforms that do not require you to build Python 1023 with a C++ compiler in order to use C++ extension modules. 1024 E.g., x86 Linux with ELF shared binaries and GCC 3.x, 4.x is such 1025 a platform. We recommend that you configure Python 1026 --without-cxx-main on those platforms because a mismatch 1027 between the C++ compiler version used to build Python and to 1028 build a C++ extension module is likely to cause a crash at 1029 runtime. 1030 1031 The Python installation also stores the variable CXX that 1032 determines, e.g., the C++ compiler distutils calls by default 1033 to build C++ extensions. If you set CXX on the configure command 1034 line to any string of non-zero length, then configure won't 1035 change CXX. If you do not preset CXX but pass 1036 --with-cxx-main=<compiler>, then configure sets CXX=<compiler>. 1037 In all other cases, configure looks for a C++ compiler by 1038 some common names (c++, g++, gcc, CC, cxx, cc++, cl) and sets 1039 CXX to the first compiler it finds. If it does not find any 1040 C++ compiler, then it sets CXX="". 1041 1042 Similarly, if you want to change the command used to link the 1043 python executable, then set LINKCC on the configure command line. 1044 1045 1046--with-pydebug: Enable additional debugging code to help track down 1047 memory management problems. This allows printing a list of all 1048 live objects when the interpreter terminates. 1049 1050--with(out)-universal-newlines: enable reading of text files with 1051 foreign newline convention (default: enabled). In other words, 1052 any of \r, \n or \r\n is acceptable as end-of-line character. 1053 If enabled import and execfile will automatically accept any newline 1054 in files. Python code can open a file with open(file, 'U') to 1055 read it in universal newline mode. THIS OPTION IS UNSUPPORTED. 1056 1057--with-tsc: Profile using the Pentium timestamping counter (TSC). 1058 1059--with-system-ffi: Build the _ctypes extension module using an ffi 1060 library installed on the system. 1061 1062--with-dbmliborder=db1:db2:...: Specify the order that backends for the 1063 dbm extension are checked. Valid value is a colon separated string 1064 with the backend names `ndbm', `gdbm' and `bdb'. 1065 1066Building for multiple architectures (using the VPATH feature) 1067------------------------------------------------------------- 1068 1069If your file system is shared between multiple architectures, it 1070usually is not necessary to make copies of the sources for each 1071architecture you want to support. If the make program supports the 1072VPATH feature, you can create an empty build directory for each 1073architecture, and in each directory run the configure script (on the 1074appropriate machine with the appropriate options). This creates the 1075necessary subdirectories and the Makefiles therein. The Makefiles 1076contain a line VPATH=... which points to a directory containing the 1077actual sources. (On SGI systems, use "smake -J1" instead of "make" if 1078you use VPATH -- don't try gnumake.) 1079 1080For example, the following is all you need to build a minimal Python 1081in /usr/tmp/python (assuming ~guido/src/python is the toplevel 1082directory and you want to build in /usr/tmp/python): 1083 1084 $ mkdir /usr/tmp/python 1085 $ cd /usr/tmp/python 1086 $ ~guido/src/python/configure 1087 [...] 1088 $ make 1089 [...] 1090 $ 1091 1092Note that configure copies the original Setup file to the build 1093directory if it finds no Setup file there. This means that you can 1094edit the Setup file for each architecture independently. For this 1095reason, subsequent changes to the original Setup file are not tracked 1096automatically, as they might overwrite local changes. To force a copy 1097of a changed original Setup file, delete the target Setup file. (The 1098makesetup script supports multiple input files, so if you want to be 1099fancy you can change the rules to create an empty Setup.local if it 1100doesn't exist and run it with arguments $(srcdir)/Setup Setup.local; 1101however this assumes that you only need to add modules.) 1102 1103Also note that you can't use a workspace for VPATH and non VPATH builds. The 1104object files left behind by one version confuses the other. 1105 1106 1107Building on non-UNIX systems 1108---------------------------- 1109 1110For Windows (2000/NT/ME/98/95), assuming you have MS VC++ 7.1, the 1111project files are in PCbuild, the workspace is pcbuild.dsw. See 1112PCbuild\readme.txt for detailed instructions. 1113 1114For other non-Unix Windows compilers, in particular MS VC++ 6.0 and 1115for OS/2, enter the directory "PC" and read the file "readme.txt". 1116 1117For the Mac, a separate source distribution will be made available, 1118for use with the CodeWarrior compiler. If you are interested in Mac 1119development, join the PythonMac Special Interest Group 1120(http://www.python.org/sigs/pythonmac-sig/, or send email to 1121[email protected]). 1122 1123Of course, there are also binary distributions available for these 1124platforms -- see http://www.python.org/. 1125 1126To port Python to a new non-UNIX system, you will have to fake the 1127effect of running the configure script manually (for Mac and PC, this 1128has already been done for you). A good start is to copy the file 1129pyconfig.h.in to pyconfig.h and edit the latter to reflect the actual 1130configuration of your system. Most symbols must simply be defined as 11311 only if the corresponding feature is present and can be left alone 1132otherwise; however the *_t type symbols must be defined as some 1133variant of int if they need to be defined at all. 1134 1135For all platforms, it's important that the build arrange to define the 1136preprocessor symbol NDEBUG on the compiler command line in a release 1137build of Python (else assert() calls remain in the code, hurting 1138release-build performance). The Unix, Windows and Mac builds already 1139do this. 1140 1141 1142Miscellaneous issues 1143==================== 1144 1145Emacs mode 1146---------- 1147 1148There's an excellent Emacs editing mode for Python code; see the file 1149Misc/python-mode.el. Originally written by the famous Tim Peters, it is now 1150maintained by the equally famous Barry Warsaw. The latest version, along with 1151various other contributed Python-related Emacs goodies, is online at 1152http://launchpad.net/python-mode/. 1153 1154 1155Tkinter 1156------- 1157 1158The setup.py script automatically configures this when it detects a 1159usable Tcl/Tk installation. This requires Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or 1160higher. 1161 1162For more Tkinter information, see the Tkinter Resource page: 1163http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/ 1164 1165There are demos in the Demo/tkinter directory. 1166 1167Note that there's a Python module called "Tkinter" (capital T) which 1168lives in Lib/lib-tk/Tkinter.py, and a C module called "_tkinter" 1169(lower case t and leading underscore) which lives in 1170Modules/_tkinter.c. Demos and normal Tk applications import only the 1171Python Tkinter module -- only the latter imports the C _tkinter 1172module. In order to find the C _tkinter module, it must be compiled 1173and linked into the Python interpreter -- the setup.py script does 1174this. In order to find the Python Tkinter module, sys.path must be 1175set correctly -- normal installation takes care of this. 1176 1177 1178Distribution structure 1179---------------------- 1180 1181Most subdirectories have their own README files. Most files have 1182comments. 1183 1184Demo/ Demonstration scripts, modules and programs 1185Doc/ Documentation sources (reStructuredText) 1186Grammar/ Input for the parser generator 1187Include/ Public header files 1188LICENSE Licensing information 1189Lib/ Python library modules 1190Mac/ Macintosh specific resources 1191Makefile.pre.in Source from which config.status creates the Makefile.pre 1192Misc/ Miscellaneous useful files 1193Modules/ Implementation of most built-in modules 1194Objects/ Implementation of most built-in object types 1195PC/ Files specific to PC ports (DOS, Windows, OS/2) 1196PCbuild/ Build directory for Microsoft Visual C++ 1197Parser/ The parser and tokenizer and their input handling 1198Python/ The byte-compiler and interpreter 1199README The file you're reading now 1200RISCOS/ Files specific to RISC OS port 1201Tools/ Some useful programs written in Python 1202pyconfig.h.in Source from which pyconfig.h is created (GNU autoheader output) 1203configure Configuration shell script (GNU autoconf output) 1204configure.in Configuration specification (input for GNU autoconf) 1205install-sh Shell script used to install files 1206setup.py Python script used to build extension modules 1207 1208The following files will (may) be created in the toplevel directory by 1209the configuration and build processes: 1210 1211Makefile Build rules 1212Makefile.pre Build rules before running Modules/makesetup 1213buildno Keeps track of the build number 1214config.cache Cache of configuration variables 1215pyconfig.h Configuration header 1216config.log Log from last configure run 1217config.status Status from last run of the configure script 1218getbuildinfo.o Object file from Modules/getbuildinfo.c 1219libpython<version>.a The library archive 1220python The executable interpreter 1221reflog.txt Output from running the regression suite with the -R flag 1222tags, TAGS Tags files for vi and Emacs 1223 1224 1225That's all, folks! 1226------------------ 1227 1228 1229--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) 1230