[MATRIX-SIG] compiling NumPy for Windows

[David Ascher]

On Sat, 31 Jan 1998, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> It would be nice if it were possible to distribute a single source
> package for all operating systems that could be compiled and installed
> by anyone with the necessary tools (compiler etc.) *automatically*,
> i.e. with no manual intervention. For Unix this is already reality
> (via Misc/Makefile.pre.in and a Setup file). For Windows we seem to be
> far away from such a situation, if it is at all doable.

Here's the issue -- with the latest Microsoft Visual compiler suite, the
GUI is the predominant way to manipulate the build process.  While it can
(somewhat) read old makefiles, and it can export makefiles, I think there
will be less and less support for that over the years -- for example, I
haven't bothered to learn MS's Makefile format, since it's just easier to
click here and there.  Not impossible, but sort of like maintaining a .el
file -- the talent is rare. =)

> Except for the "shipping back" part, this looks like what I just
> described for some particular compiler. Is that really such a big
> problem?

Well, there is no equivalent to Makefile.pre.in on PC's.  There's the
registry, which tells you about things like version number & where the
binaries & Lib directory are, but there is no way to find out
automatically where the source tree is.

I noticed that Tcl/Tk's "full installation" includes the Include
subdirectory and the .LIB files (equivalent to libpython15.a).  Maybe
that's something worth considering.  The person compiling extensions
shouldn't have to worry about having the source tree, and if the .h files
and the .lib file were installed by the binary installer package, we could
find out about it from the registry (making a Makefile.pre.in tool much
easier to write).

Such an extension compilation tool would be easier to write if one could
assume that Mark Hammond's Registry and COM tools were installed, as
they'd make talking to the registry and compiler much easier.  

> Another question: is it necessary to consider more than one compiler
> for the Windows platform? With several different compilers, it would
> already be a problem to provide installation instructions for
> everyone.

I haven't heard anyone on this list mention anything but Microsoft's
compiler.

--david



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