[IronPython] Converting an script to exe or dll

[Jim Hugunin]

Jeremy Jones wrote:
> Scott Hatfield wrote:
> 
> >That's great!
> >
> >Now can you have it run without a console?
> >
> How do you mean?  I put a sleep(5) in there so that I could see the
> output when I double clicked on __main__.exe from Windows Explorer,
but
> a console still popped up.  I think there are probably ways to disable

I'm glad people like the ability to run __main__; however, I should let
you know about a few <wink>minor limitations</wink>.

1. This only works for Python programs that fit into a single file (huge
limitation).
2. The binding to IronPython.dll can be a little fragile.
3. You can only get programs with a console.
4. The libraries produced aren't easily used from other CLR languages.
5. Your exe can only be called __main__ (although rename will work just
fine)

The plan is to remove all of these limitations by 1.0.

The console issue should be fixed both here and we should provide a
version of IronPythonConsole (whatever it's final name is) that doesn't
launch a console just like pythonw does.  This isn't a priority right
now because of the early alpha status of the project.  I like to always
have a console around when developing/debugging Python code because at
the very least it's a good place for unhandled exceptions to be shown.
Removing the console to me is part of the final polish of an application
and I don't think that IronPython is ready for that final polish stage
yet.

If you're finding the console to be the major blocker to using
IronPython today, please file a bug (or email ironpy at microsoft.com) and
we can think about raising the priority of this task. 

Thanks - Jim