[Python-Dev] Build Notes for building trunk with Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition

[Paul Moore]

On 23/11/2007, Christian Heimes <lists at cheimes.de> wrote:
> bsddb is automatically build by a build step. But you have to convert
> the project files in build_win32 to VS 2008 first. Simply open the
> solution file and let VS convert the projects.

VS 2008 Express doesn't have a devenv command, so the pre-link step
doesn't work. You need to open the bsddb project file, and build
db_static by hand. For a debug Python, you need the Debug
configuration, for a release Python you need the Release
configuration. Beware - the default config is Debug_ASCII which is not
checked by the pre-link step.

So, from a checkout of Python, plus the various svn externals:

- dowload nasm, install it somewhere on your PATH, and copy nasm.exe
to nasmw.exe (Why did you use nasmw.exe rather than nasm.exe? Is there
a difference in the version you have?)
- Open the bsddb solution file, and build debug and release versions
of db_static
- Open the Python pcbuild solution file, and build the solution.

You'll get a total of 2 failures and 18 successes. Of the failures,
one (_sqlite3) is not actually fatal (the pre-link step fails, and
that only the first time), and the module is actually built correctly.
The other is _tkinter, which isn't sorted out yet.

You can then run the tests with rt.bat. If you have an openssl.exe on
your path, test_socket_ssl may hang. Otherwise, everything should
pass, apart from test_tcl. (Actually, there's a failure in
test_doctest right now, seems to have come in with r59137, but I don't
have time to diagnose right now).

This is the case for both trunk and py3k (ignoring genuine test failures).

Paul.