Build recent version of Python and its prerequisite libraries from CMake ExternalProject. Tested with Python 3.10 and 3.11.
In contrast to https://github.com/python-cmake-buildsystem/python-cmake-buildsystem that replaces Python's Autotools scripts completely eith CMake, this project is a thin use of CMake ExternalProject to build Python via its own Autotools scripts.
Because of broken system libraries and the fast build time, we always build LZMA and BZip2.
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/mydir
cmake --build buildThat makes binaries including: ~/mydir/bin/[python3,pip3]. If the system has graphical capabilities, this built Python will work with Matplotlib, etc.
-Dfind=on
: searches for these libraries and builds them if not present: expat, ffi, readline, ssl, zlib
-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
: build Python itself with optimization (default off). Building Python with optimization takes several times longer--about 2 minutes on a Mac Mini M1.
The other libraries are always set to optimize.
-Dpython_tag=v3.10.6
: select Python Git tag to build.
- Getting Python can be tricky for license-restricted users e.g. government and corporations.
- Building Python can be an arcane process without the automation of a high-level build system CMake.
Python uses Autotools on most platforms except Windows where Visual Studio is used. The libraries need to be built with specific options and the forums are full of suggestions for tweaking Python build scripts etc. This CMake project elides those issues for Linux/MacOS platforms at least.
Tested on Linux and MacOS with compilers including:
- Apple Clang
- Linux: GCC 4.8 and newer
The CMakeLists.txt automatically forces "clang" on MacOS and "gcc" on Linux. This seemed to be the most robust choice, as Autotools failed to configure with choices like "gcc-version", Intel "icc" failed, and Intel "icx" took 100x longer than GCC to build.