Re: building/installing Python modules?

[roth dot gnu at ursus dot net]

==> "cw" == christoph wiedemann <christoph.wiedemann@daimlerchrysler.com> writes:

    cw> I thought of using the auto* tools for building python
    cw> extensions a few months ago now, but since i was using swig, i
    cw> did not know how to integrate the swig meta files (*_wrap.c)
    cw> into the auto* stuff - the way to write a script which edits
    cw> the Makefile.in does not look practical to me. Now i have a
    cw> patchwork, using GNU make (to generate the meta files)
    cw> together with distutils (build / install the extensions). Very
    cw> unsatisfying.

As much as I like the idea of the distutils for building python
extensions, too much of my code is in C++ and the benefits of using
automake are enormous.  What I ended up doing is building the
swig/python modules with automake.  Gleaning LIBPY and other python
variables is easy from aclocal.m4.

The idea of editing the Makefile.in isn't too bad; automake's support
for plugins is currently lacking, but projects like kde work around it
on a regular basis.  I believe they do it for the .moc support, among
other things.

The missing link I had to fix with automake/python module support was
that python wouldn't load uninstalled automake shared objects as
python extensions.  The solution was to write a python importer for
libtool .la files.  Libtool does this in order to link against .la
files, why can't python do the same at run-time?

C