Binary generation with distutils? (Freeze, py2exe, etc.)

[Martin v. Löwis]

"Thomas Heller" <theller at python.net> writes:

> Problems with freeze, IMO, are that it requires a C-compiler,
> which most people on windows do not have, also the resulting
> files are much larger than those created by py2exe or installer,
> because the byte codes are not compressed.

In the context of distutils, absence of a compiler may not be a
problem: people building packages with distutils will need a compiler,
atleast if the package contains extension modules.

As for size of the resulting executable: if compressing the byte code
really provides a significant saving, I think freeze should make use
of that mechanism, too.

I see the primary advantage of freeze over the other mechanisms in
that it provides (or can provide) a truly stand-alone binary. The
Windows-specific packagers always need to put pythonxy.dll into the
executable, and any required extension modules; this is ugly. If
libpython is available as a static library, freeze can produce more
compact binaries, too, since it can omit unused extension modules.

Regards,
Martin