[Distutils] waf can be used to compile Python extension modules

[Nick Coghlan]

On 24 Mar 2014 00:13, "Paul Moore" <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 23 March 2014 00:00, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 23 Mar 2014 09:35, "Paul Moore" <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 22 March 2014 22:37, Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> >> >> 1. Formally decouple the setup.py CLI from the distutils command
system
> >> >
> >> > Agreed - it looks like a compatible CLI needs to be part of the
> >> > transition
> >> > to any new system (I assume that's what you meant).
> >>
> >> Does this statement mean "document the exact setup.py invocations
> >> which need to be supported by any tool" or does it mean "create a new
> >> standard cli and update pip to use it and sort out a means of wrapping
> >> existing setup.py scripts to expose it"? If the former, then I've
> >> informally done that earlier in the thread (basically "setup.py
> >> bdist_wheel -d XXX" is it[1], if we assume that by the time it's
> >> official pip will have completed the move to installing from sdist by
> >> using wheels as an intermediate step). Writing a wrapper setup.py that
> >> simply invokes a different tool such as bento is trivial.
> >
> > I mean actually writing it up and documenting all the *build options*
> > (including cross compilation support). As far as I am aware, that hasn't
> > been done to date (at least, not in an easily consumable form that
people
> > can link to).
>
> Hmm. How about if, to start the ball rolling, I add a short section to
> the pip documentation entitled "setup.py interface" that explains the
> basic commands that pip uses. That can then be expanded on as
> additional data is collected.

Yes, explaining the interface that pip currently relies on would definitely
be a good starting point.

> One thing though. I may be being dense here, but I'm not aware of any
> way for pip to provide build options via "pip wheel". I certainly
> don't know the pip wheel command you'd use to (for example)
> cross-compile psutil for Windows on a Linux box. Or how you'd use pip
> wheel to build pyYAML with libyaml support (you need to indicate where
> the libyaml headers and library live). Obviously you can do this with
> *distutils*, but that's different. We're not expecting bento, or
> distil, or waf, or whatever, to support the full distutils command
> line interface, surely?

Now you begin to see the scope of the problem. It's definitely solvable,
but means asking a whole pile of "required, recommended or
distutils-specific?" questions about the existing distutils and setuptools
build system :)

"pip already relies on it" sets the minimum for the "required" category,
but there's more to a full build system abstraction than what pip currently
supports.

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> The pip wheel command includes --build-options and --build-options
> flags that translate to global and command-specific options on the
> bdist_wheel command. Those are as follows:
>
> Global options:
>   --verbose (-v)  run verbosely (default)
>   --quiet (-q)    run quietly (turns verbosity off)
>   --dry-run (-n)  don't actually do anything
>   --help (-h)     show detailed help message
>   --no-user-cfg   ignore pydistutils.cfg in your home directory
>
> Options for 'bdist_wheel' command:
>   --bdist-dir (-b)  temporary directory for creating the distribution
>   --plat-name (-p)  platform name to embed in generated filenames
(default:
>                     win-amd64)
>   --keep-temp (-k)  keep the pseudo-installation tree around after
creating
>                     the distribution archive
>   --dist-dir (-d)   directory to put final built distributions in
>   --skip-build      skip rebuilding everything (for testing/debugging)
>   --relative        build the archive using relative paths(default: false)
>   --owner (-u)      Owner name used when creating a tar file [default:
current
>                     user]
>   --group (-g)      Group name used when creating a tar file [default:
current
>                     group]
>   --skip-scripts    skip building the setuptools console_scripts
>   --universal       make a universal wheel (default: false)
>
> Note that none of those control the build - the ones that do that are
> options to the build_ext and build commands, but *distutils* doesn't
> allow you to supply them in a bdist_wheel command. The same is true
> for pip install, BTW. That sends the options to the setup.py install
> command - again, not to setup.py build_ext.
>
> I can imagine good ways of using the existing pip interface to drive
> build tools (even distutils!) more effectively than we do at present.
> But I don't think the current interface supports compilation arguments
> (even if it looks like it does).
>
> Paul.
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