[Python-Dev] new Makefile.in

[Guido van Rossum]

Hi Neil,

My mail suffers delays of 12-24 hours while mail.python.org is working
on some enormous backlog.  So I just saw your message about a new
Makefile...

> Spurred on by comments made by Andrew, I spent some time last
> night overhauling the Python Makefiles.  I now have a toplevel
> non-recursive Makefile.in that seems to work fairly well.  I'm
> pretty sure it still should be portable.  It doesn't use includes
> or any special GNU make features.  It is half the size of the old
> Makefiles.  The build is faster and its now easier to follow if
> something goes wrong.

I'd like to see this!

> A question: is it possible to break the Python static library up?
> For example, instead of having libpython<version>.a have
> Parser/parser<version>.a, Objects/objects<version>.a, etc?  There
> would still only be one shared library.  This would speed up
> incremental builds and also help Andrew with PEP 229.  I'm
> thinking that the Makefile do something like this:
> 
>     all: python$(EXE)
> 
>     PYLIBS= Parser/parser.a Objects/objects.a ...  Modules/modules.a
> 
>     python$(EXE): $(PYLIBS)
>         $(LINKCC) -o python$(EXE) $(PYLIBS) ...
> 
>     Modules/modules.a: minpython$(EXE)
>         ./minpython$(EXE) setup.py

Sounds cool to me.  (Where's the patch for a shared libpython???)

> AFACT, the only thing affected by splitting up the static library
> is Misc/Makefile.pre.in.  Is this correct?

Yeah, and that should be phased out in favor of distutils anyway.  Now
would be a great time!

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)