[Numpy-discussion] Build on Windows: system_info and site.cfg

[Albert Strasheim]

Hello all

I'm trying to build NumPy on Windows using optimized ATLAS and CLAPACK
libraries.

The system_info functions are currently doing things like:

p = self.combine_paths(lib_dir, 'lib'+l+ext)

and

if self.search_static_first:
    exts = ['.a',so_ext]
else:
    exts = [so_ext,'.a']
if sys.platform=='cygwin':
    exts.append('.dll.a')

which generally isn't going work on Windows, where library names don't
always start with 'lib' and always end in '.lib', for static libraries and
DLL import libraries.

It might be worth it to have users explicitly specify their build settings
(compiler, flags, BLAS libraries, LAPACK libraries, etc.) in a site.cfg
instead of trying to detect all the possible combinations of C and/or
FORTRAN BLAS, LAPACK, FFTW and whatnot. A few default configurations could
be provided for common configurations.

Any thoughts? Is anyone interested in fixing the build on Windows?

Thanks!

Albert