HowToBuild

Build Steps

Precompiled Packages

If you want to try pyv8 ASAP, we suggest you use precompiled package for your platform.

Please downloads the precompiled packages for Windows and Linux/Debian.

tocer also provide packages (1) (2) for ArchLinux

Build the module

Just run the setup.py with install or build command

setup.py install

Build the distribution

Just run the setup.py with bdist or bdist_wininst command

setup.py bdist_wininst

Third Party Library

Python

As the runtime and libraries, download and install Python 2.5 or later first.

set environment variable PYTHON_HOME to the python root folder

Boost

PyV8 use boost::python for interoperability, so, download the latest boost version and build the library.

set environment variable BOOST_HOME to the boost root folder

Google V8

• Please use PyV8's setup.py script to build Google V8, because PyV8 need RTTI and Exception support, check the following section for more detail *

Follow the document to download and build v8 engine as static library

set environment variable V8_HOME to the v8 root folder

If you want to build v8 with GCC 4.x at x64 platform, you should compile v8 with PIC (Position-Independent Code) mode, and set the arch to x64 for scons.

export CCFLAGS=-fPIC
scons arch=x64

You may also need build Boost with '-fPIC' argument.

./bjam --clean
./bjam cxxflags=-fPIC

Runtime Type Information and C++ Exception in v8 3.0

From the v8 engine 3.0, the build script of v8 engine has disabled RTTI and Exception by default. It may save some bits of memory, but will broke the boost::python library and pyv8.

PyV8's setup.py will try to automatic patch V8's build scripts to enable RTTI and Exception supports.

So, please set V8_HOME environment variable port to your V8 code, or let's PyV8's setup.py checkout a private build, before you make a clean build.

Debug Mode

You could build Google v8 and PyV8 with debug mode, for more detail debug information.

• Build v8 with debug mode

scons mode=debug # x86
scons mode=debug arch=x64 #64

• Set or export DEBUG=1

set DEBUG=1 # Windows
export DEBUG=1 # Unix

• Build pyv8 with setup.py

python setup.py build

Build with VS2010

contribute by gaussgss

> set DISTUTILS_USE_SDK=true
> set MSSdk=true
> %vs2010%\vc\bin\vcvars32.bat
> python setup.py build -c msvc

Build with Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks with XCode 5

XCode 5 will use libc++ as default standard C++ library by default, but Google V8 use libstdc++ by default.

You may get following error with wrong library.

Symbol not found: __ZSt20__throw_length_errorPKc

So, please set the environment variable before build V8 and PyV8

$ export CXXFLAGS='-std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -mmacosx-version-min=10.8'
$ export LDFLAGS=-lc++
$ python setup.py build

please check issue #220 for more detail.

FAQ

1. Fail to load _PyV8.so with AttributeError exception

   If you got the exception AttributeError: 'Boost.Python.StaticProperty' object attribute '__doc__' is read-only, please check your Python version. The Python 2.6.4 introduce a known issue which will break boost 1.40 or earlier version. Please use Python 2.5.x/2.6.3, or upgrade your boost to 1.41 or later.