[Pythonmac-SIG] Fat Python?

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 7-okt-2005, at 19:58, Bob Ippolito wrote:

>
> On Oct 7, 2005, at 6:33 AM, Kent Quirk wrote:
>
>> We're trying to get our application ready for the forthcoming  
>> Intel Macs, and we'll need to have a fat binaries version of  
>> Python and support for it in py2app.
>>
>> We have successfully built an intel version of the Python.org  
>> version of Python 2.4 using gnu readline, but we haven't even  
>> tried to make fat binaries yet, nor do we have the full set of  
>> source changes found in Mac Python. Doing so would require quite a  
>> bit more autoconf-foo than we have at hand.
>>
>> We've also been looking at macholib to see about making it (and by  
>> extension, py2app) aware of little-endian binaries. But that's  
>> going slowly.
>>
>> Has anyone else tackled this yet? Are the Mac Python sources  
>> available?
>>
>> Bob, have you done anything with this since the spring? Can you  
>> perhaps enlighten us with what you know regarding the task queue  
>> to pull this off?
>
> I have no plans or interest in doing the work to support little  
> endian until I have a little endian machine.  That's not going to  
> happen unless someone gives me one, or Apple comes out with a  
> little endian powerbook.

I do have access to a little endian machine at work, but because  
changing Python to support fat binaries is likely to be very boring  
for the most part I won't work on it as well unless I'd actually have  
a good reason to do so.

What you could do is building a native python on PPC, a native python  
on x86 and then merge the two. This would give you most of the  
functionality you're after.

If I'd work on fat binary support I'd do it in this order:
1) Somehow automate the two builds + merge
2) Modify distutils to build fat binaries
3) Try to factor out all CPU-dependent autoconf stuff, such as by  
adding a py-cpuinfo.h

If you go for step 2 it might be useful to add building against SDKs  
as well (10.3 or even 10.2 for PPC and 10.4 for x86). Step 1 is easy,  
step 3 is easy as well (except for the "get the patch merged into  
Python CVS" part), step 2 is a lot harder.

Ronald
>
> -bob
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pythonmac-SIG maillist  -  Pythonmac-SIG at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pythonmac-sig
>

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2105 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pythonmac-sig/attachments/20051008/d3f06b19/smime.bin