On Saturday 01 November 2003 03:12, Edward C. Jones wrote:

I compile and link Python extension modules using the script

gcc -fPIC -g -I/usr/local/include/python2.3 \ -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -c mymodule.c g++ -shared mymodule.o -L/usr/local/lib -o mymodule.so

It works for me but it isn't pretty. Is there a better way to write it?

Yes, the distutils module. It's part of the Python standard library and documented there.

Gcc finds all the libraries that need to be linked in. For example, "/usr/local/lib/python2.3/site-packages/numarray/libnumarray.so". How does gcc do this?

It doesn't :-) And it doesn't have to. You are not creating a stand-alone executable, but a shared library for use in Python. Everything is linked together dynamically at runtime when Python imports all the modules.

I created a .so file "utilities.so" that contains some C functions that are called in mymodule.c but are not visible from Python. Both "utilities.c" and "mymodule.c" use numarray. What changes do I make in the script above? Must I use the nasty "libnumarray_UNIQUE_SYMBOL" trick?

I don't know enough about numarray to answer that question, but that is certainly one option. Alternatively you could include utilities.c into mymodule.c.

What is a script for creating "utilities.a" using gcc? How do I change the script above to include "utilities.a"?

To create the archive: gcc -c utilities.c ar r libutilities.a utilies.o You might have to add some libraries or library paths to the compilation step. To use the archive, just add -lutilities to the gcc command line, plus eventually the path with -L. Konrad. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Konrad Hinsen | E-Mail: hinsen@cnrs-orleans.fr Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS) | Tel.: +33-2.38.25.56.24 Rue Charles Sadron | Fax: +33-2.38.63.15.17 45071 Orleans Cedex 2 | Deutsch/Esperanto/English/ France | Nederlands/Francais -------------------------------------------------------------------------------