Downloading¶

You can get the latest release of the SIP source code from http://www.riverbankcomputing.com/software/sip/download.

SIP is also included with all of the major Linux distributions. However, it may be a version or two out of date.

Configuring¶

After unpacking the source package (either a .tar.gz or a .zip file depending on your platform) you should then check for any README files that relate to your platform.

Next you need to configure SIP by executing the configure.py script. For example:

python configure.py

This assumes that the Python interpreter is on your path. Something like the following may be appropriate on Windows:

c:\python32\python configure.py

If you have multiple versions of Python installed then make sure you use the interpreter for which you wish SIP to generate bindings for.

The full set of command line options is:

--version¶

Display the SIP version number.

-h, --help¶

Display a help message.

--arch <ARCH>¶

Binaries for the MacOS/X architecture <ARCH> will be built. This option should be given once for each architecture to be built. Specifying more than one architecture will cause a universal binary to be created.

-b <DIR>, --bindir <DIR>¶

The SIP code generator will be installed in the directory <DIR>.

-d <DIR>, --destdir <DIR>¶

The SIP module will be installed in the directory <DIR>.

--deployment-target <VERSION>¶

New in version 4.12.1.

Each generated Makefile will set the MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET environment variable to <VERSION>. In order to work around bugs in some versions of Python, this should be used instead of setting the environment variable in the shell.

-e <DIR>, --incdir <DIR>¶

The SIP header file will be installed in the directory <DIR>.

-k, --static¶

The SIP module will be built as a static library. This is useful when building the SIP module as a Python builtin (see Builtin Modules and Custom Interpreters).

-n, --universal¶

The SIP code generator and module will be built as universal binaries under MacOS/X. If the --arch option has not been specified then the universal binary will include the i386 and ppc architectures.

-p <PLATFORM>, --platform <PLATFORM>¶

Explicitly specify the platform/compiler to be used by the build system, otherwise a platform specific default will be used. The --show-platforms option will display all the supported platform/compilers.

-s <SDK>, --sdk <SDK>¶

If the --universal option was given then this specifies the name of the SDK directory. If a path is not given then it is assumed to be a sub-directory of /Developer/SDKs.

-u, --debug¶

The SIP module will be built with debugging symbols.

-v <DIR>, --sipdir <DIR>¶

By default .sip files will be installed in the directory <DIR>.

--show-platforms¶

The list of all supported platform/compilers will be displayed.

--show-build-macros¶

The list of all available build macros will be displayed.

--sip-module <NAME>¶

The SIP module will be created with the name <NAME> rather than the default sip. <NAME> may be of the form package.sub-package.module. See Building a Private Copy of the sip Module for how to use this to create a private copy of the SIP module.

The configure.py script takes many other options that allows the build system to be finely tuned. These are of the form name=value or name+=value. The --show-build-macros option will display each supported name, although not all are applicable to all platforms.

The name=value form means that value will replace the existing value of name.

The name+=value form means that value will be appended to the existing value of name.

For example, the following will disable support for C++ exceptions (and so reduce the size of module binaries) when used with GCC:

python configure.py CXXFLAGS+=-fno-exceptions

A pure Python module called sipconfig.py is generated by configure.py. This defines each name and its corresponding value. Looking at it will give you a good idea of how the build system uses the different options. It is covered in detail in The Build System.

c:\python32\python configure.py --platform win32-g++

c:\python32\python configure.py --platform win32-borland

coff2omf python32.lib python32_bcpp.lib

Building¶

The next step is to build SIP by running your platform’s make command. For example:

make

The final step is to install SIP by running the following command:

make install

(Depending on your system you may require root or administrator privileges.)

This will install the various SIP components.