Building lxml for Python 2.7 on Windows

Question

I am trying to build lxml for Python 2.7 on Windows 64 bit machine. I couldn't find lxml egg for Python 2.7 version. So I am compiling it from sources. I am following instructions on this site

http://lxml.de/build.html

under static linking section. I am getting error

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\lxmlpackage\lxml-2.2.6\lxml-2.2.
6>python setup.py bdist_wininst --static
Building lxml version 2.2.6.
NOTE: Trying to build without Cython, pre-generated 'src/lxml/lxml.etree.c' need
s to be available.
ERROR: 'xslt-config' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

** make sure the development packages of libxml2 and libxslt are installed **

Using build configuration of libxslt
Building against libxml2/libxslt in one of the following directories:
  ..\libxml2-2.7.6--win32--w2k--x64\lib
  ..\libxslt-1.1.26--win32--w2k--x64--0002\lib
  ..\zlib-1.2.4--win32--w2k--x64
  ..\iconv-1.9.1--win32--w2k--x64-0001\lib
running bdist_wininst
running build
running build_py
running build_ext
building 'lxml.etree' extension
error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat

Can any one help me with this? I tried setting the path to have Microsoft Visual Studio.. I can run vcvarsall.bat from the commandline.. but python is having problems

Answer 1

I bet you're not using VS 2008 for this :)

There's def find_vcvarsall(version): function (guess what, it looks for vcvarsall.bat) in distutils with the following comment

At first it tries to find the productdir of VS 2008 in the registry. If that fails it falls back to the VS90COMNTOOLS env var.

If you're not using VS 2008 then you have neither the registry key nor suitable environment variable and that's why distutils can't find vcvarsall.bat file. It does not check if the bat file is reachable through the PATH environment variable.

The solution is to define VS90COMNTOOLS variable to point to Tools directory of Visual Studio.

That being said take a look at 11.4. distutils.msvccompiler — Microsoft Compiler section in Python's docs which states

Typically, extension modules need to be compiled with the same compiler that was used to compile Python.

Martin v. Loewis in the email titled Download Visual Studio Express 2008 now on python-list mailing list states the same

Python 2.6, 2.7, and 3.1 are all built with that release (i.e. 2008). Because of another long tradition, Python extension modules must be built with the same compiler version (more specifically, CRT version) as Python itself. So to build extension modules for any of these releases, you need to have a copy of VS 2008 or VS 2008 Express.

In the light of above statements you should use VS 2008 if you want to build lxml for Python 2.7 so although setting VS90COMNTOOLS takes care of finding vcvarsall.bat file it's not the solution.

That being said :) people do try to use older CRT with newer compiler:
Can I use Visual Studio 2010's C++ compiler with Visual Studio 2008's C++ Runtime Library?
How to Enforce C++ compiler to use specific CRT version?
VS 2008 - Link against older C runtime

I'd like to thank Kev Dwyer (for pointing out importance of version of VS which is used) and Stefan Behnel (for pointing me to distutils as a place dealing with compiler's configuration) in the thread Problem building lxml under Windows - error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat on lxml mailing list. I'd like to also thank agronholm from freenode #distutils IRC channel for confirmation that distutils does contain code which looks for vcvarsall.bat file.