Windows GCC (MinGW) binaries for Python developers

UPDATE 2009/10/09: Updated to GCC 4.3.3!

This package containes an installer for GCC/MinGW (the fantastic, unofficial build called 'TDM'), that fully integrates within your official Python installation to allow compilation of extensions.

It tries to fix all the problems with compiling Python distutils extensions with GCC (the good ol' MSVCR71.DLL problem, if you know what I am speaking of). See below for details, but it really should Just Works(TM). Using GCC, it is possible to produce extensions (.pyd) which are fully compatible with the official python.org distribution (so, they can be mix'n'matched with extensions compiled with Visual Studio).

Download

Download the package here:

• https://github.com/develersrl/gccwinbinaries/releases/download/v1.1/gcc-mingw-4.3.3-setup.exe

It's GPL licensed (do I really need to say that?)

It contains:

• GCC 4.3.3-tdm-1 (http://www.tdragon.net/recentgcc/)
• binutils 2.19.1
• mingw32-make 3.81-2
• mingwrt 3.16
• w32api 3.13

The source code for all the packages above can be found in many mirrors including the MinGW official download page. Or you can ask them directly to me and I will give you a download link from this site (to be fully GPL compliant and save my spare bandwidth).

The source code for the installer (a InnoSetup script) can be found in the file mingw.iss.

What does the installer do?

• Copies the binary files to run GCC.
• Install the gccmrt script (see below).
• Optionally modify the environment PATH.
• Optionally configures an existing Python installation to use GCC for distutils.

Quick guide for installing GCC for Python development

1. Run the installer and follow instructions.
2. If possible, don't select an installation path with whitespaces in it. There is no outstanding bug about this ''right now'', but don't abuse your luck.
3. Make sure that the box Add GCC to your system PATH is checked.
4. Make sure that the box Bind to Python installations is checked.
5. Make sure that the box Set the default runtime library is checked. Then, select the library you need:
   • For Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.x, you want MSVCR90.DLL
   • For Python 2.4 or 2.5, you want MSVCR71.DLL
   • For Python 2.3 or older, you want MSVCRT.DLL
6. Mark which Python installations will use GCC by default. It's really up to you :)

If you work on multiple Python versions, you will need to switch the runtime library after installation. You can do that at any time with the gccmrt script (see below).

FAQ

1. distutils says: error: command 'gcc' failed: No such file or directory
   It's because either:

   • You didn't let the installer modify your system PATH. Do it yourself manually now and try again.
   • You didn't close your command prompt after installation. You need to close and reopen the command prompt to actually use the new PATH.

2. Can I work with multiple Python versions and different runtime libraries?
   Yes, you can. You just need to call gccmrt each time you switch Python version, so that distutils will link against the correct runtime library.

3. I am scared this installer will screw up the Python installation. How can I rollback, in case something does not work?.
   Simply run the uninstaller. The uninstaller will absolutely revert any change the installer did, including the Python installation binding (distutils configuration). And you should really relax: all the installer does is to add/modify the distutils.cfg in PYTHON\Lib\distutils. It's a text file, you can have a look, read the manual, ecc.

4. Can this GCC be used to compile Python itself from the source code?
   No clue about that. Have a try, and use Google. My understanding is that you still need to patch the Python source code somehow.

5. Why should I use this if I own a Visual Studio .NET 2003, or I'm using the free Visual Studio toolkit?.
   Because GCC 4.x generates a far better code than Visual Studio .NET 2003 used to do, and has more advanced features like the auto-vectorization. No surprise here, since GCC 4.x is many years newer, after all. You can compare the generated code yourself, but my evidence says so (and pretty clearly so).

Python support (compiling distutils extensions)

This installer provides full support for integration with Python. This basically means 3 things:

• Add the GCC binary directory to the PATH.
  Python distutils just tries to run gcc and expects to automatically find it (there's no magic discovery involved, like that with Visual Studio where it finds the compiler through the registry). You don't want to know how many people just forget to set the PATH and waste hours trying to figure out why distutils isn't picking up their GCC (or, worse, it's picking up an older gcc somewhere else, maybe in cygwin...).

• Set GCC as default compiler in global distutils.cfg.
  The platform-wide distutils.cfg (located in PYTHON\Lib\distutils) allows to configure the default compiler to use for extension compilation. The installer will show the user all the existing Python installation in the system (discovered through registries) and will let the user choose which ones to configure so that GCC is used by default when compiling extensions.

• Configure the runtime library to use (MSVCRT.DLL or MSVCR71.DLL).
  As you probably know, Python 2.3 (and older) are compiled with Visual Studio 98 and linked against MSVCRT.DLL. Instead, Python 2.4 and 2.5 are compiled with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and linked against MSVCR71.DLL. There is some widespread confusion about how to configure GCC properly to handle this. The installer will let the user decide which runtime library to use for compilation. Moreover, the setting can be changed at any time by using the gccmrt script (see below).

gccmrt

gccmrt is a very simple script which lets you decide which Microsoft runtime library GCC should link against. The choice is permanently "saved", so that every compilation after having run the script will use the specified runtime library. The installer will execute gccmrt once at installation time, so you need to manually run it only if you work on different projects using different runtime libraries (eg: different Python versions).

Just by typing gccmrt at the prompt (assuming your PATH is configured correctly), you get the usage screen:

gccmrt: configure the Microsoft runtime library to use for compilation

Usage: gccmrt <60|70|71|80|90>

  60 - Link with MSVCRT.DLL (like Visual Studio '98 aka VC6)
  70 - Link with MSVCR70.DLL (like Visual Studio .NET aka VC70)
  71 - Link with MSVCR71.DLL (like Visual Studio .NET 2003 aka VC71)
  80 - Link with MSVCR80.DLL (like Visual Studio .NET 2005 aka VC80)
  90 - Link with MSVCR90.DLL (like Visual Studio .NET 2008 aka VC90)

I guess you don't need many more instructions...

How gccmrt works (and why it works)

gccmrt works by simply overwriting libmsvcrt.a with the version you requested, and changing the internal specs file of GCC to correctly define __MSVCRT_VERSION__.

More details to be written... (but trust me, it works!).

Author

I'm Giovanni Bajo rasky@develer.com ... for some definition of author, since I just wrote the installer script!