Distribute pre-compiled python extension module with distutils

Question

Quick one today: I'm learning the in's and out's of Pythons distutils library, and I would like to include a python extension module (.pyd) with my package. I know of course that the recommended way is to have distutils compile the extension at the time the package is created, but this is a fairly complex extension spanning many source files and referencing several external libs so it's going to take some significant playing to get everything working right.

In the meantime I have a known working build of the extension coming out of Visual Studio, and would like to use it in the installer as a temporary solution to allow me to focus on other issues. I can't specify it as a module, however, since those apparently must have an explicit .py extension. How could I indicate in my setup.py that I want to include a pre-compiled extension module?

(Python 3.1, if it matters)

Answer 1

Try a manifest template:

http://docs.python.org/distutils/sourcedist.html#specifying-the-files-to-distribute

Answer 2

I solved this by overriding Extension.build_extension:

setup_args = { ... }
if platform.system() == 'Windows':
    class my_build_ext(build_ext):
        def build_extension(self, ext):
            ''' Copies the already-compiled pyd
            '''
            import shutil
            import os.path
            try:
                os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(self.get_ext_fullpath(ext.name)))
            except WindowsError, e:
                if e.winerror != 183: # already exists
                    raise


            shutil.copyfile(os.path.join(this_dir, r'..\..\bin\Python%d%d\my.pyd' % sys.version_info[0:2]), self.get_ext_fullpath(ext.name))

    setup_args['cmdclass'] = {'build_ext': my_build_ext }

setup(**setup_args)

Answer 3

Try using package_data: http://docs.python.org/distutils/setupscript#installing-package-data