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== How does py2exe work and what are all those files? ==

Let's start from the needed results going back to how py2exe does its job.

Python is an interpreted language and as long as Microsoft will not ship a Python interpreter (and its accompanying class library) with every copy of its flagship operating systems products, there is no direct way to execute a Python script on a vanilla Microsoft OS machine.
For most casual user of py2exe, that means that you must create an executable (.exe) file that when clicked on will just run the script.
This is what py2exe does for you.
After py2exe has done its magic, you should have a "dist" directory with all the files necessary to run your python script. No install necessary. Click and run. No DLL hell, nothing else to download.

'''But what are all those files?'''

|| myprog.exe || The actual executable. You can select a custom icon by using some specific target options (see CustomIcons) ||
|| python??.dll || the python interpreter library. This is the brain of your executable ||
|| library.zip || This is a standard zip file where all the pure source modules will be inserted (using the "zipfile" option, you can also select to put that file in a sub-directory and with a different name) ||
|| *.pyd || The pyd files are actually standard Windows DLL (I used the useful depends.exe to check things around). They are also standard modules for Python. A Python program can import those pyd. Some applications build pyd to provide accelerated features. Also they are necessary to provide support to native functions of the operating system (see also CTypes to never have to use SWIG again!). Those files also follow into the subdirectory where library.zip will be installed||
|| *.dll || some pyd probably has some DLL has dependencies, and here they come ||
|| w9xpopen.exe || This is needed on Win9x platform. ||

To run your program needs all those files as a necessary condition. But it might happen that this is not a sufficient condition. For examples, as encodings are imported "by name". If you use a feature that requires encodings, you will need to put an option to include encodings unconditionally or to import it explicitely from one of your script. (see EncodingsAgain and EvenMoreEncodings).
Some other modules (eg [http://pyserial.sourceforge.net/ pyserial-pyparallel]) also conditionally import modules for each platform. You can avoid the warning by putting the correct "ignores" options in py2exe. Last but not least, modules like [http://www.pygtk.org/ pygtk] seem to create a module reference on-the-fly and therefore the corresponding warnings also are harmless (see ExcludingDlls to learn how to correct that).

An important point to note: the main script (the one passed as an option to "windows" or "console" in your setup file) is not put with all the other files in the library.zip. Instead it is byte-compiled (see OptimizedBytecode for some details on optimization) and inserted into a named resource in the executable shell. This technique also allows you to insert binary string in the final executable (very nice if you want to add a custom version tag) through the usage of the "other_resources" options for the target (see CustomDataInExe).
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["py2exe and windows services"] - some gained knowledge
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 * OptimizedBytecode How to get optimized bytecode for all modules
 * CustomDataInExe Add custom data in the executable?
 * HowToDetermineIfRunningFromExe - Simple functions to determine if you're in an .exe or .py
=== py2exe and PyQt ===
 * Py2exeAndPyQt If you're getting `File "qt.pyc", line 7, in __load Import Error: No module named sip`, read this
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 * ["PIL and reportlab] If you've read ["PIL and py2exe"] and still get ''cannot identify image file'', read this  * ["PIL and reportlab"] If you've read ["PIL and py2exe"] and still get ''cannot identify image file'', read this
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=== py2exe and PyXML ===
 * If you're getting 'File "xml\sax\saxexts.pyc", line 77, in make_parser; xml.sax._exceptions.SAX''''''Reader''''''Not''''''Available: No parsers found', try adding "--packages xml.sax.drivers,xml.sax.drivers2" to your setup.py py2exe command.
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=== py2exe and SciPy ===
 * ScipyImportProblems Using py2exe with scipy ends up with missing {{{cephes}}} and {{{__cvs_version__}}} messages. Here is a fix.
=== py2exe and PythonCard ===
 * PythonCardSetup Getting pythoncard to work by editing setup.py
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=== py2exe and subprocess ===
 * Py2ExeSubprocessInteractions - getting subprocess module to work with py2exe.
=== py2exe and logging module ===
 * LoggingModule - Getting the %(filename)s format string working in the python logging module.

py2exe

Py2Exe is an additional command to DistUtils, that creates standalone distributions for Win32.

Its home is here [http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/py2exe/] and on Sourceforge [http://sourceforge.net/projects/py2exe/]

How does py2exe work and what are all those files?

Let's start from the needed results going back to how py2exe does its job.

Python is an interpreted language and as long as Microsoft will not ship a Python interpreter (and its accompanying class library) with every copy of its flagship operating systems products, there is no direct way to execute a Python script on a vanilla Microsoft OS machine. For most casual user of py2exe, that means that you must create an executable (.exe) file that when clicked on will just run the script. This is what py2exe does for you. After py2exe has done its magic, you should have a "dist" directory with all the files necessary to run your python script. No install necessary. Click and run. No DLL hell, nothing else to download.

But what are all those files?

myprog.exe

The actual executable. You can select a custom icon by using some specific target options (see CustomIcons)

python??.dll

the python interpreter library. This is the brain of your executable

library.zip

This is a standard zip file where all the pure source modules will be inserted (using the "zipfile" option, you can also select to put that file in a sub-directory and with a different name)

*.pyd

The pyd files are actually standard Windows DLL (I used the useful depends.exe to check things around). They are also standard modules for Python. A Python program can import those pyd. Some applications build pyd to provide accelerated features. Also they are necessary to provide support to native functions of the operating system (see also CTypes to never have to use SWIG again!). Those files also follow into the subdirectory where library.zip will be installed

*.dll

some pyd probably has some DLL has dependencies, and here they come

w9xpopen.exe

This is needed on Win9x platform.

To run your program needs all those files as a necessary condition. But it might happen that this is not a sufficient condition. For examples, as encodings are imported "by name". If you use a feature that requires encodings, you will need to put an option to include encodings unconditionally or to import it explicitely from one of your script. (see EncodingsAgain and EvenMoreEncodings). Some other modules (eg [http://pyserial.sourceforge.net/ pyserial-pyparallel]) also conditionally import modules for each platform. You can avoid the warning by putting the correct "ignores" options in py2exe. Last but not least, modules like [http://www.pygtk.org/ pygtk] seem to create a module reference on-the-fly and therefore the corresponding warnings also are harmless (see ExcludingDlls to learn how to correct that).

An important point to note: the main script (the one passed as an option to "windows" or "console" in your setup file) is not put with all the other files in the library.zip. Instead it is byte-compiled (see OptimizedBytecode for some details on optimization) and inserted into a named resource in the executable shell. This technique also allows you to insert binary string in the final executable (very nice if you want to add a custom version tag) through the usage of the "other_resources" options for the target (see CustomDataInExe).

Learned things with py2exe 0.5

[http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/py2exe/py2exe-0.5.0.win32-py2.3.exe py2exe0.5.0] is the release of py2exe 0.5 [http://groups.google.de/groups?dq=&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=1ebr001fkuq85al2i8c26ejceu8qvedmdb%404ax.com&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Dde%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26group%3Dcomp.lang.python announced] by Thomas Heller in January 2004

As nearly usual in Open Source space, prerelases and beta are of the same quality as .02 releases from some commercial software developing companies - rather full functional, with small obstacles.

I had to "upgrade" also my knowledge about workarounds from py2exe 0.4

["py2exe and windows services"] - some gained knowledge

Tips and Tricks

General

py2exe and PyQt

  • Py2exeAndPyQt If you're getting File "qt.pyc", line 7, in __load Import Error: No module named sip, read this

py2exe and wxPython

py2exe and PIL

  • ["PIL and py2exe"] If you're getting cannot identify image file, read this

py2exe and reportlab

  • ["PIL and reportlab"] If you've read ["PIL and py2exe"] and still get cannot identify image file, read this

py2exe and Python ADODB modules

  • ADODB package Modules named adodb_xxx (like adodb_mysql) are not added automatically, must be added explicitly

py2exe and PyXML

  • If you're getting 'File "xml\sax\saxexts.pyc", line 77, in make_parser; xml.sax._exceptions.SAXReaderNotAvailable: No parsers found', try adding "--packages xml.sax.drivers,xml.sax.drivers2" to your setup.py py2exe command.

py2exe and win32com

py2exe and Innosetup

py2exe and Biopython

py2exe and SciPy

  • ScipyImportProblems Using py2exe with scipy ends up with missing cephes and __cvs_version__ messages. Here is a fix.

py2exe and PythonCard

py2exe and Quixote

Quixote is a pythonivc toolkit for webpages which allows one to execute ptl files using ihooks. You can distribute your web application with medusa or twisted and hence you can create a web application without IIS or Apache.

I like to distribute my application with py2exe but I can not make py2exe setup script to recognize that x.ptl is a valid python files. Any idea how to do this? - impossible: ["Quixote & py2exe"] HAM20040602

py2exe and MatPlotLib

  • MatPlotLib - Fixing and including configuration information for this plotting package.

the runtime enviroment

py2exe and subprocess

py2exe and logging module

  • LoggingModule - Getting the %(filename)s format string working in the python logging module.

Fixes

Thoughts

CategoryHomepage

Py2Exe (last edited 2008-07-08 11:27:43 by localhost)