Make distutils look for numpy header files in the correct place

Question

In my installation, numpy\'s arrayobject.h is located at …/site-packages/numpy/core/include/numpy/arrayobject.h. I wrote a trivial Cython script t

Answer 1

For anyone not using Cython, a slight modification of R_Beagrie's solution without that dependency is if you simply import build_ext from distutils.command.build_ext instead of Cython.

from distutils.core import setup
from distutils.extension import Extension
from distutils.command.build_ext import build_ext

class CustomBuildExtCommand(build_ext):
    """build_ext command for use when numpy headers are needed."""
    def run(self):

        # Import numpy here, only when headers are needed
        import numpy

        # Add numpy headers to include_dirs
        self.include_dirs.append(numpy.get_include())

        # Call original build_ext command
        build_ext.run(self)

ext_modules = [Extension("hello", ["hello.c"])]

setup(
  name = 'Hello world app',
  cmdclass = {'build_ext': CustomBuildExtCommand},
  install_requires=['numpy'],
  ext_modules = ext_modules
)