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

Thomas Heller theller at python.net
Fri Mar 22 06:22:05 EST 2002


"Jeff Shannon" <jeff at ccvcorp.com> wrote in message news:3C9A5C93.4DF63794 at ccvcorp.com...
> > > Problems with freeze, IMO, are that it requires a C-compiler,
> > > which most people on windows do not have...
> >
> > 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.
>
> Yes, but it is entirely possible that someone may be building a pure
> Python application, and wish to distribute that as a single file.  It
> would be desirable (though probably not essential) to require a C compiler
> only in those cases where custom C extension modules are used.

This may still (at least on windows) require extension modules:
there are a lot of modules in separate dlls - just look into your
python\DLLs directory.

>
> For instance, I'm working on an application that uses wxPython and
> win32all, but all of my own code is pure Python.  It's an internal
> utility, so ease-of-packaging isn't a big priority (it's not too big of a
> deal for me to install ActivePython + wxPython + my own bdist_wininst
> package on each of the half-dozen machines that will need it), but I can
> easily imagine a case in which it would be preferable to have a
> single-file installer that would manage all of this automatically.

Gordon's installer can create single file executables (which unpack
dlls if you run them, and remove the dlls afterwards), also it can
create a very simple minded installation program.
Myself, I'm happy to either distribute zip-files or directories full
of files (for internal use), or windows installers (WISE, or Innodist)
for external use.

Thomas





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