[Distutils] [build_ext] more than one external library

[Stefan Seefeld]

Christoph Ludwig wrote:

> In case you wonder why I need to pass the library names on the command line
> of setup.py: My extension uses several Boost libraries. Boost uses some kind
> of "library name mangling" to encode the compiler, library version and build
> options (single vs. multi threaded, release vs. debug build) in the library
> names. I cannot know which build of the Boost library the user of my extension
> will want / need to link against. (E.g., if he user's python interpreter was
> built without thread support then the extension must not be linked against
> libboost_*mt*.) 

I once had the same concern, but many others, such as build_ext being very
inflexible in its way to compile extension modules.

What I ended up with is a set of custom commands ('config', 'build_ext', 'test',
'install...') to allow subprojects to be built with standard autotools (autoconf,
make), but being ultimately controlled by distutils. I then could take advantage
of distutils packaging infrastructure ('sdist', 'bdist').

Doing this the build/install procedure is now

python setup.py config <all parameters you'd normally pass to 'configure'>
python setup.py build
python setup.py test (optional)
python setup.py install

It all works quite well, though I would prefer not to use a hybride build system.
(I'm still waiting for alternatives such as scons or boost.build to mature.)

HTH,
		Stefan