I'm not the original author of Python for .Net, and when I first tried to compile it with VS2005, I had a lot of troubles, so I thought you might want to know how I managed to do it.

Visual Studio 2005

==================

- Create a VS Solution.

- Add a new project "PythonRuntime"

- Add all files rom src/runtime in your project.

- Replace the Properties.AssemblyInfo.cs with the src/runtime/assemblyinfo.cs file.

- In importhook.cs, change the "ClrModule" reference to "ModuleObject". (I'm not sure if it breaks something somewhere, but it doesn't seem to break anything on the embedded side).

- You should then be able to compile it.

pythonnet contains a new solution file for Visual Studio 2005: pythonnet.sln

It should make development under Windows much easier since you don't have to

install MSys or Cygwin to run the makefile.

I only use Python for .Net to embed python, so I never tried, nor do I know how to compile CLR.dll.

The solution file should work with the free VS .NET Express Edition.

I added test units for the modification I made to the embedded side. They are in src\embed_tests. You need NUnit to run them.

Available configurations

------------------------

- Create a new project "UnitTests" in you previously created solution.

- Add a reference to NUnit.framework

- Add a reference to PythonRuntime

- Compile

- Open the nunit project and run it.

Every configuration copies the dll, pdf and exe files to the root directory

of the project.

Virgil Dupras

* Release

Builds Python.Runtime, Python.Tests, clr.pyd and python.exe. The console

project starts a Python console

* Debug

Same as Release but creates a build with debug symbols

* UnitTest

Builds a Debug build. The console project invokes runtests.py instead of

opening a Python shell.

* EmbeddingTest

Builds Python.EmbeddingTests and its dependencies. The configuration

requires the NUunit framework.

Python version

--------------

You can switch the destination version by defining either PYTHON24 or PYTHON25

inside the Python.Runtime project.

** Don't forget to force a rebuild after you have altered the setting! **

MS VS doesn't take changes to define into account.

Thanks to Virgil Duprasfor his original VS howto!

Christian 'Tiran' Heimes

TODO list

=========

For PythonNet 2.0

-----------------

* Implement support for ModulePropertyAttribute.

* Replace CLRModule.preload code with ModulePropertyAttribute specific code.

* Deprecate implicit loading of assemblies

* Add support for implicit calls to overloaded methods.

OverloadedMethod[string, int]("egg", 42) works

OverloadedMethod("egg", 42) does not under some circumstances work

* Debug failing unit tests under Mono and report them if they are caused

by incompatibilities in Mono.

Future and nice-to-have features

--------------------------------

* Add support for Python's debug builds. Debug builds have additional fields

in the struct, extensive self testing and C assert() are enabled. Py_DEBUG

implies Py_TRACE_REFS and Py_REF_DEBUG which enlarge the PyObject and

PyVarObject based structs. The Py_INCREF and Py_DECREF macros have a larger

payload as well. They keep track of the absolute number of references and

do tests when an object is GCed.

I've taken care of most of the incompatibilities but the Py_DEBUG build

is still broken. Somehow tp_mro of wrapper_descriptor isn't a tuple.

* Support Python 2.6. The most important feature I was able to isolate is the

PyType_FastSubclass macro and related TypeFlags in interops.cs.

* Let's talk to the Debian and Ubuntu maintainers for Python in order to convince

them to build Python with --enable-shared. Ubuntu's Python is semi static and not

linked against libpython2.x.so. This causes trouble with clr.so.

Python for .NET Changes

-----------------------

PythonNet 2.0 alpha 2

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- First work on Python 2.5 compatibility. The destination version can be

set by defining PYTHON24 or PYTHON25. Python 2.6 compatibility is in

work. [tiran]

- Added VS 2005 solution and project files including a UnitTest

configuration which runs the unit test suite. [tiran]

- Enhanced unit test suite. All test cases are combined in a single

test suite now. [tiran]

- Fixed bugs in generics support for all Python versions. [tiran]

- Fixed exception bugs for Python 2.5+. When compiled for Python 2.5+ all

managed exceptions are based on Python's exceptions.Exception class.

[tiran]

- Implemented a preload switch. Automatic preloading can be enabled by

setting clr.preload to true. Preloading is automatically enabled for

interactive Python shells and disabled in all other cases. [tiran]

- Added deprecation warnings for importing from CLR.* and the CLR module.

[tiran]

- Implemented support for methods with variable arguments

spam(params object[] egg) [tiran]

- Fixed Mono support by adding a custom marshaler for UCS-4 unicode,

fixing a some ref counter bugs and creating a new makefile.mono.

[tiran]

- Added a standard python extension to load the clr environment

(src/monoclr). XXX DOES NOT WORK

[tiran]

- Added yet another python prompt. This time it's a C application that

embedds both Python and Mono. It may be useful as an example app for

others and I need it to debug a nasty bug. [tiran]

- Implemented ModuleFunctionAttribute and added ForbidPythonThreadsAttribute.

The latter is required for module functions which invoke Python methods.

[tiran]

- Added clr.AddReference("assembly name"), clr.FindAssembly("name") and

clr.ListAssemblies(verbose). [tiran]

PythonNet 2.0 alpha 1

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

# copy this file to ~/.mono/config or add the dllmaps to the global

# configuration file /etc/mono/config

<configuration>

<dllmap dll="python23" target="libpython2.3.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python23.dll" target="libpython2.3.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python24" target="libpython2.4.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python24.dll" target="libpython2.4.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python25" target="libpython2.5.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python25.dll" target="libpython2.5.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python26" target="libpython2.6.so" os="!windows" />

<dllmap dll="python26.dll" target="libpython2.6.so" os="!windows" />

</configuration>