Compiling Python modules on Windows x64

Question

I\'m starting out some projects in words processing and I needed NumPy and NLTK. That was the first time I got to know easy_install and how to compile new modul

Answer 1

For Windows 10, Python 2.7.11, Cygwin 2.5.2 and x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc 4.9.2 or 5.4.0 (but see note under 1 below), pulling together comments from elsewhere, here's what I had to do for my Python extension to compile, link, and beat a race condition between msvcrt.dll and msvcr90.dll:

1. Edit distutils/cygwinccompiler, and in class Mingw32CCompiler

   • Replace the old -mno-cygwin fix with

     if self.gcc_version < '4' or is_cygwingcc():
       no_cygwin = ' -nostdlib -lgcc'
     

     for gcc 4.9.2 -- note for 5.4.0, no 'if', just

     no_cygwin = ''
     

   • Get the right compiler in place:

             self.set_executables(compiler='x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc%s -O -Wall' % no_cygwin,
                      compiler_so='x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc%s -mdll -O -Wall' % no_cygwin,
                      compiler_cxx='x86_64-w64-mingw32-g++%s -O -Wall' % no_cygwin,
                      linker_exe='x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc%s' % no_cygwin,
                      linker_so='x86_64-w64-mingw32-%s%s %s %s'
     

   • note for x86_64-w64-mingw32-gcc 5.4.0, it seems to work better without msvcr90, so make the call to get_msvcr conditional:

             if self.gcc_version < '5':
                 self.dll_libraries = get_msvcr()
     

2. Use a setup.py with the following

   libdirs=['C:\\Python27\\libs',...]
   macros=[('MS_WIN64','1'),...]
   platform="WIN32"
   

3. Patch one of my source file headers to include

   #ifdef MS_WIN64
   #define strdup _strdup
   #endif
   

4. Finally,

    /c/Python27/python [editted setup].py -v build --compiler=mingw32
    /c/Python27/python [editted setup].py -v install
   

Some of the above may not be in quite the optimal place, but it got my extension working...