Compiling Python 2.4 extensions with free VC++ Toolkit

[Mike C. Fletcher]

Jody at bag.python.org wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been wondering if there's anything on the drawing board about 
> patching distutils/msvccompiler.py so that it can compile Python 
> extensions using the free Visual C++ toolkit instead of the entire 
> Visual C++ development environment.

I've got a patch for msvccompiler.py as part of my Toolkit recipe here:
    http://www.vrplumber.com/programming/mstoolkit/
it seems to work fairly well for those who have tried it, and should 
allow MSVC 7.1 to override MSToolkit if it's installed... i.e. it should 
work on non-toolkit installs as well (don't have MSVC 7.1 to test that, 
but the changes shouldn't alter "normal" usage).

> I know it's possible, because I was able to compile and install 
> PyCrypto 2.0 for Python 2.4 today.  I did this by commenting out the 
> part of msvccompiler that checks for VS library paths and manually 
> adding them to my LIB environment variable.

If you feel like it, try with the patch/recipe above.  It should avoid 
any extra work regarding fiddling with paths on a per-package basis 
(though that's just because it puts the path setup into the vc7.bat file 
and then tells distutils to look in the environment for them).

Have fun,
Mike

BTW, what is with that funky 7-person garbage "From:" list in your 
message header?  Some messed-up attempt at spam-catching?  Rather 
annoying in Thunderbird, as it generates 7 garbage "To" headers when 
doing a reply-to-all to catch the mailing-list.  Might want to fix that...

________________________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://www.vrplumber.com
  http://blog.vrplumber.com