In build_ext.py, we see the following code:

     elif os.name == "nt":
         # Look for SWIG in its standard installation directory on
         # Windows (or so I presume!).  If we find it there, great;
SEE ---> # if not, act like Unix and assume it's in the PATH.
         for vers in ("1.3", "1.2", "1.1"):
             fn = os.path.join("c:\\swig%s" % vers, "swig.exe")
             if os.path.isfile(fn):
                 return fn
         else:
             return "swig.exe"

However, it doesn't really work because in spawn.py:

 if not dry_run:

SEE ---># spawn for NT requires a full path to the .exe try: rc = os.spawnv(os.P_WAIT, executable, cmd) except OSError, exc:

         # this seems to happen when the command isn't found
         raise DistutilsExecError, \
               "command '%s' failed: %s" % (cmd[0], exc[-1])
     if rc != 0:
         # and this reflects the command running but failing
         raise DistutilsExecError, \
               "command '%s' failed with exit status %d" % (cmd[0], rc)

Thus, if Swig is installed in any place other than c:\, the first code will not be smart enough to make things work.

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reply-to: a n d y @ n e t f x p h . c o m