On out-of-date Python Applications

[John Machin]

On Jul 20, 1:47 am, John Machin <sjmac... at lexicon.net> wrote:
> On 20/07/2009 12:24 AM, Virgil Stokes wrote:
> > John Machin wrote:
> >> On Jul 19, 6:04 pm, Virgil Stokes <v... at it.uu.se> wrote:
> >>> I am not a heavy user of Python; but, I do work with it and some of its
> >>> application packages (e.g. PyODE), in an academic setting.
> >>> Many of these applications packages have a Windows installer which
> >>> usually works fine. However, I also try to keep up with the latest
> >>> release of Python, and this is where I often have problems. That is, the
> >>> latest Windows installer provided for some of these applications will
> >>> not install on the latest version of Python.
> > Actually John,
> > My question was about the more general case --- how to help with
> > upgrading applications; but, I will try to address your email.
> >> Otherwise: What does "will not install" mean?
> > This means that when the Windows installer is executed it informs you
> > that you do not have a match between the application and the Python that
> > it finds on your Windows PC. You can easily find this out for yourself
> > by trying to install PyODE on a Windows platform with a Python version
> > later than 2.5.x.
> >> Are these pure Python
> >> packages or do they include C extensions (binary (pyd) or source?)?
> > Obviously, this depends on the application. In the particular case that
> > I mentioned (PyODE) I believe that there is a mix of C binaries and
> > Python code.
> >> At
> >> what stage of the installation does the installation fail?
> > In the initial stages.
> >> With what
> >> error message(s)?
> > In one specific case, the message is (paraphrasing) "You do not have
> > Python 2.5 installed" --- the installation is then aborted.
> >> With what versions of Python?
>
> > I have only Python 2.6.2 on my home Windows Vista PC and PyODE does not
> > have a Windows Installer for Python 2.6.
>
> >>> I do understand that there can be a time lag between the release of
> >>> Python applications and the latest Python. I also appreciate the work of
> >>> the people that are responsible for these applications.
>
> >>> My question is --- Is there anything I, as a user of an application
> >>> package that is out-of-date with respect to the latest Python, can do to
> >>> help in this process of bringing an application  up-to-date?
> > Note, again John, my question was about how I might assist (help) with
> > the updating of applications;
>
> Your answers have been very helpful in determining exactly what your
> problem is; thank you.
>
> > but, thank you for your interest in this.
> > Perhaps, only the owner/responsible programmer for the application can
> > create a Windows installer,
>
> Given a source distribution, a suitable C++ compiler, and the suspension
> of Murphy's Law, anyone should be able to (a) install it on their own
> machine (b) make a Windows installer.
>
> > or perhaps others could assist with this ---
>
> Perhaps indeed ...
>
> > this is what my question was about. I would be glad to assist if
> > possible :-)
>
> Suggestions:
>
> (1) contact the pyODE maintainer and ask, or check out the project's
> forums on sourceforge
>
> (2) if you have a C++ compiler on your Windows box: get the source
> distribution, unpack it, ensure that the ODE_BASE in the setup.py points
> to your (existing) ODE 0.7 installation, do
>      \python26\python setup.py install
> and stand well back.
>
> I have just tried this and got a ton of warnings from the compile and 3
> errors from the link:
>
> build\lib.win32-2.6\ode.pyd : fatal error LNK1120: 3 unresolved externals
> error: command '"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio
> 9.0\VC\BIN\link.exe"' failed with exit status 1120

Update: The problem is evidently with the lib(s) available with ODE
0.7 (or 0.8 -- there are conflicting stories about which one to use
with PyODE); they were compiled with VS2003 AFAICT and the complained-
of symbols are not supplied by VS2009 which is what I'm using to try
and build PyODE for Python 2.6 .

The next step would be to try to compile ODE 0.7 or 0.8 with VS9 --
however this would require "project files" for ODE for VS9, and there
aren't any on the ODE website; it has only those for VS3 and VS5.

As all I know about VS9 is that somewhere inside the ferschlugginer
100 Mb download there's a C compiler that does the right thing when
distutils pushes its button, I'm going to have to punt this back to
you to follow up on suggestion (1) ... skip asking the pyODE
maintainer (last heard saying little time available and he wasn't
even /using/ pyODE any more); try asking on the pyODE and ODE mailing-
lists has anyone contemplated a Python 2.6 / win32 / VS 2009 build of
pyODE.

Cheers,
John