0.9.0 fails to start with Python 3.5 on Windows

[aberres]

With vanilla python as well as with WinPython 3.5 I a m running into an input error complaining about missing _ctypes_test.
0.7.2 on Windows as well as 0.9.0 on Mac are working fine.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\users\b\local\p3\lib\runpy.py", line 170, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "c:\users\b\local\p3\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "C:\Users\b\local\p3\Scripts\xlwings.exe\__main__.py", line 5, in <module>
  File "c:\users\b\local\p3\lib\site-packages\xlwings\__init__.py", line 38, in <module>
    from .udfs import xlfunc as func, xlsub as sub, xlret as ret, xlarg as arg, get_udf_module, import_udfs
  File "c:\users\b\local\p3\lib\site-packages\xlwings\udfs.py", line 6, in <module>
    from _ctypes_test import func
ImportError: No module named '_ctypes_test'

[stonebig]

stupid question: how does excel find winpython (or the winpython we want it to use) ?

[stonebig]

ok, found.

[fzumstein]

By default it starts python by executing python from the command line, i.e. this works if you have a default python installation on your PATH. Since WinPython doesn't add the location to the PATH, you need to change PYTHON_WIN to the path where WinPython resides, see: http://docs.xlwings.org/en/stable/vba.html#settings This currently is in the VBA module.

Note that we're working on turning the VBA module into an addin that stores the settings in an external settings file, so you should in theory be able to automatically change the path in the settings upon installation of WinPython.

[stonebig]

So there's no dependancy, and it can ship on winpythonzero ?

[stonebig]

what about the nightmare Excel 32 bit on a windows 64 ? no issue ? which Python would work for that ? only the 32 bit ?

[fzumstein]

the only dependency that xlwings has on windows that is not automatically installed when doing pip install xlwings is pywin32, but as I recall this is part of WinPython so you should have no problems.
xlwings works with all combinations of Windows/Excel/Python bitness, since its running out of process.

[stonebig]

argh, pywin32 is 8Mo big

[fzumstein]

not sure if I follow, according to this list, pywin32 is already included: https://github.com/winpython/winpython/blob/master/changelogs/WinPythonQt5-3.4.4.6.md

[stonebig]

yes, but not in the small winpythonzero. So far, I used pythonnet as a smaller alternative to pywin32.

[stonebig]

could we use xlwings with all the (specific to the sheet) python code only present in the excel sheet ?

(the way to do it doesn't need to be pretty, for example, the script could be in an excel cell)

... a bit like Jupyter-notebook programming