Python 3.7 configuration issue

[dieter]

Robin Becker <robin at reportlab.com> writes:
> ...
> I don't disagree with the above. I think the issue is that the
> configure process did not say anything about this. If ctypes is
> required and cannot be built then ./configure ...... should probably
> tell me; if that's not possible then the make step should do so and
> fail to complete. Failing at make install seems a bit late.

I hope that "make test" would have shown this (and maybe other)
problems.

> ...
> Any how as an experiment it seems that if I do have the libffi-dev
> package installed then the with-system-ffi flag is not required and
> the make install does work. It might be that make silently allows
> extension builds to fail even if they are 'required' and that later
> causes an error in the install phase.

Some problems do not show dirrectly in the generation process but
only during "import" of the extension module (or even when the
module is actively used). That's why I always run the test suite
after a Python generation. Typically, some of those tests fail (lacking
necessary requirements) but I get an overview what I must expect.