[Python-Dev] Supporting non-Microsoft compilers

[Gordon McMillan]

Greg Ward wrote:

> However, it seems like it would be nice if people could build
> Python itself with (eg.) cygwin's gcc or Borland's compiler.  (It
> might be essential to properly support building extensions with
> gcc.)  Has anyone one anything towards that goal?  

Robert Kern (mingw32) and Gordon Williams (Borland).

> It appears
> that there is at least one patch floating around that advises
> people to hack up their installed config.h, and drop a
> libpython.a somewhere in the installation, in order to compile
> extensions with cygwin gcc and/or mingw32.  This strikes me as
> sub-optimal: can at least the required changes to config.h be
> made to allow building Python with one of the Windows gcc ports?

Robert's starship pages (kernr/mingw32) has a config.h 
patched for mingw32.

I believe someone else built Python using cygwin without 
much trouble. But mingw32 is the preferred target - cygwin is 
slow, doesn't thread, has a viral GPL license and only gets 
along with binaries built with cygwin.
 
Robert's web pages talk about a patched mingw32. I don't 
*think* that's true anymore, (at least I found no problems in 
my limited testing of an unpatched mingw32). The difference 
between mingw32 and cygwin is just what runtime they're built 
for.


- Gordon