--compiler build option on windows

[vbabiy]

On Windows while installing from source code several packages (psycopg2, PIL, ...) emit an error:

error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

The issue is being fixed by installing MinGW and using mingw32 compiler like this:

setup.py install build --compiler=mingw32

As far as I see, it would be very good for PIP to have "--build-option" like "--install-option", so that one could use PIP with mingw32 compiler:

pip install --build-option="--compiler=mingw32" psycopg2

---

• Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/ianb/pip/issue/191
• Originally Reported By: Anonymous
• Originally Created At: 2010-11-23 03:20:59

[vbabiy]

I could solve the problem adding:

[build]

compiler=mingw32

to the file distutils.cfg in C:\Python27\Lib\distutils\

• http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#using-non-microsoft-compilers-
  on-windows
• http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#gnu-c-cygwin-mingw
• http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#location-and-names-of-config-
  files
• http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#syntax-of-config-files

compilers-on-windows

config-files

---

Original Comment By: http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#using-non-microsoft-compilers-on-windows

[vbabiy]

I would also like to see pip support a --build-option for the same reason. I
recently ran into the issue when using pip to install MarkupSafe and ended up
using a %USERPROFILE%\pydistutils.cfg file with the same content as the OP.

---

Original Comment By: Anonymous

[vbabiy]

I wonder does '--install-option' meet your requirements? I have not tried it,
but it looks like it will work. Note, it's "hidden" in the help output of the
install command.

# pip install --help

....


--install-option=INSTALL_OPTIONS

                        Extra arguments to be supplied to the setup.py

install

                        command (use like --install-option="--install-

                        scripts=/usr/local/bin").  Use multiple --install-

                        option options to pass multiple options to

setup.py

                        install.  If you are using an option with a

directory

                        path, be sure to use absolute path.

---

Original Comment By: Kelsey Hightower

[vbabiy]

Using --install-option in the following manner doesn't currently work. I still
need to do something like http://jonforums.github.com/python.html as a
workaround.

C:\tools>pip --version pip 0.8.2 from c:\python27\lib\site-
packages\pip-0.8.2-py2.7.egg (python 2.7)

C:\tools>pip install --install-option="--compiler=mingw32" markupsafe
Downloading/unpacking markupsafe Running setup.py egg_info for package
markupsafe

Installing collected packages: markupsafe Running setup.py install for
markupsafe usage: -c [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...] or:
-c --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...] or: -c --help-commands or: -c cmd --help

error: option --compiler not recognized

---

Original Comment By: http://jonforums.github.com/python.html

[pnasrat]

See also issue #167

[hickford]

Thanks vbabiy for the workaround. I too would like to see this option.

[gimmi]

+1

[felciano]

+1

[grigoryvp]

+1
Need some easy-to-use command-line way to install mercurial via pip on windows. Since Microsoft (c) (r) (tm) removed compiler from Windows 8 (c) (r) (tm) SDK, it's more important now.

[wchorolque]

+1

[piotr-dobrogost]

Could somebody from core devs please comment on what's needed to move this forward? Is addition of --build-option option and passing its value to setup.py build the way to go?

[qwcode]

pip doesn't currently call setup.py build directly to be able to pass the options.
more likely in the short term I think that we add build option support to "pip wheel", which is due out in pip-1.4?
not sure, see #881, @dholth , @pfmoore ?

[dholth]

Do you need to give the same options to every build? Can we ask you to do it manually for those non-default builds?

Bdist_wheel certainly may not be sophisticated enough to pass the arguments anyway......

Marcus Smith notifications@github.com wrote:

pip doesn't currently call setup.py build directly to be able to pass the options.
more likely in the short term I think that we add build option support to "pip wheel", which is due out in pip-1.4?
not sure, see #881, @dholth , @pfmoore ?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[qwcode]

Can we ask you to do it manually for those non-default builds

what are you suggesting? how manually?

I guess somebody can do this?

pip install --no-install SomePackage
cd <venv>/build/SomePackage
python setup.py build --compiler=special-compiler
pip install --no-download SomePackage

[steveoh]

👍

[ax3l]

is introduction --build-option still on the table? I could need this for h5p's --mpi flag that can not be addressed via the environment either.

[pfmoore]

It's a terrible hack, but you can abuse --global-option for this. Because --global-option values are added to the setup invocation before the install command, you can do things like

pip install --global-option build_ext --global-option --compiler=mingw32 foo

This constructs a command line that looks like

python setup.py build_ext --compiler=mingw32 install

(but if you say I told you to do this, I'll deny everything :-))

I suspect there won't be much change to what's currently available - the long-term goal is to make the build process independent of the install process, and in the meantime, the recommendation is really to build wheels. Either get the project to supply (Windows and/or OSX) wheels on PyPI, or if that's not practical, build wheels yourself locally (setup.py bdist_wheel should always be possible) and serve them from a local directory or a devpi instance.

[pradyunsg]

@pfmoore So, the current recommended workaround is to download the package, build wheels manually and use the wheels?

[pfmoore]

@pradyunsg Yes

[pradyunsg]

We have a strong reason not to do this (won't add a setuptools specific command to pip) and a workaround for this issue as well.

Can this issue be closed as a "won't fix", mentioning both of them in a closing comment?

[dstufft]

Seems reasonable to me, so I'm going to go ahead and close this. If someone wants it I suggest the best path forward is when we work on the abstract build system on distutils-sig, to chime in about wanting a way to control the compiler being used.