Building for Win64 (was: Re: [Python-Dev] Re: Python 2.0 release candidate 1)

Trent Mick trentm@ActiveState.com
Tue, 10 Oct 2000 12:51:55 -0700


On Tue, Oct 10, 2000 at 12:35:15PM -0600, Bjorn Pettersen wrote:
> Are there any instructions on how to build this for Win64/itanium
> anywhere?
> 

Um... not really.  I did/am doing the Win64 port but I have not really given
the information required to build it, which, I agree, kind of sucks. I have
not done so because:

  - the Python build system on Windows uses DevStudio project files
  - AFAIK there is no DevStudio yet for Win64 (if there were, building Python
    would be trivial, just setup a new configuration in DevStudio)
  - I am currently using a cross-compiler for Win64 provided by Intel (as
    part of a contract that ActiveState has to port Python to Win64 and other
    OSes for the IA-64 platform). I don't know if there is a publicly
    available compiler for Win64 (I haven't looked).
  - My method for building for Win64 involves:
    (1) exporting Win32 build makefile from the Python *.dsp files from
        within DevStudio.
    (2) running a hack script of my own to convert those to makefile to ones
        that will build for Win64 (these makefiles are extremely specific to
        my system, i.e. it is a hack)
    (3) run those makefiles

I *could* checkin this hack script of mine and provide some documentation in
Python's standard readme, if the other python-dev'ers would be ammenable to
this. [Note: my files would be isolated to one directory, say PCbuild/win64.]
As I said, I have not done this because I expected to just wait until
DevStudio for Win64 came on the scene and then the build system for it would
fit in smoothly to the current .dsp's.

I would rather not become a separate provider of the Win64 build scripts
because I don't want to support them outside of Python's mechanisms (i.e.
through SourceForge).  In other words, I'll check them into the Python core
if others think that that is okay, otherwise  I am afraid the answer is
"please wait until DevStudio for Win64 comes along".

Trent

-- 
Trent Mick
TrentM@ActiveState.com