How to install Python package from source on Windows

[Deborah Swanson]

MRAB wrote, on Monday, May 15, 2017 12:44 PM
> 
> On 2017-05-15 13:52, eryk sun wrote:
> > On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 6:37 AM, Deborah Swanson 
> > <python at deborahswanson.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Where did you find recordclass-0.4.3-cp34-cp34m-win32.whl?  There 
> >> weren't any win32 builds on 
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/recordclass.
> > 
> > It's in the 
> middle of the file list:
> > 
> >     recordclass-0.4.3-cp34-cp34m-win32.whl (md5) Python Wheel cp34 
> > 2017-04-17 17KB
> > 
> > Maybe you're looking at a cached page in your browser? But that 
> > doesn't explain why pip doesn't see it.
> > 
> >> Maybe I can find an earlier 3 build that won't demand Visual C++.
> > 
> > The wheel doesn't need a compiler. It has an ABI tag because it 
> > already includes the compiled extension module.
> > 
> I used pip to install into Python 3.4 (32-bit) from PyPI. It fetched 
> "recordclass-0.4.3.tar.gz" and compiled it instead of fetching 
> "recordclass-0.4.3-cp34-cp34m-win32.whl".
> 
> Why?

Excellent question, though I have no clue what the answer is.

> Come to think of it, what's that "cp34m" in the name? I don't have
that 
> in the regex module's wheels, I have "none" instead.

Another excellent question. "cp" in "cp34m" might stand for C++, but if
so, what's the rest of it mean? Or maybe "CPython 3.4" plus "m"
(whatever "m" stands for)?

What's "the regex module's wheels"? I certainly don't know, though I
know vague outines of what "regex" and "wheel" are.
 
> Rename "recordclass-0.4.3-cp34-cp34m-win32.whl" to 
> "recordclass-0.4.3-cp34-name-win32.whl".
> 
> With the new name, it installs and seems to work!

Most excellent and I will try it. 

As a mutable alternative to namedtuples, recordclass certainly seems
worth the detour to look at and try, if I can get it to install! All of
the hairy points I've run into with namedtuples revolve around their
immutability. Getattr works and solves some of them, but it's helpless
and breaks with the "object has no attribute xxx" in others. So a
mutable version of namedtuple functionality would be extremely useful
indeed.

I'll also take a look at the contents of "recordclass-0.4.3.tar.gz" to
see what I can see. Maybe not much though. I'm real ignorant of how
extensions are made, but I might see something worth seeing.

Deborah