Can I use VS2005 to build extensions for a Python system built with VS2003

Question

RDFLib needs C extensions to be compiled to install on ActiveState Python 2.5; as far as I can tell, there's no binary installer anywhere obvious on the web. On attempting to install with python setup.py install, it produces the following message:

error: Python was built with Visual Studio 2003;
extensions must be built with a compiler than can generate compatible binaries.
Visual Studio 2003 was not found on this system. If you have Cygwin installed,
you can try compiling with MingW32, by passing "-c mingw32" to setup.py.

There are various resources on the web about configuring a compiler for distutils that discuss using MinGW, although I haven't got this to work yet. As an alternative I have VS2005.

Can anyone categorically tell me whether you can use the C compiler in VS2005 to build Python extension modules for a VS2003 compiled Python (in this case ActiveState Python 2.5). If this is possible, what configuration is needed?

Answer 1

I can't tell you categorically, but I don't believe you can. I've only run into this problem in the inverse situation (Python built with VS2005, trying to build with VS2003). Searching the web did not turn up any way to hack around it. My eventual solution was to get VC Express, since VC2005 is when Microsoft started releasing the free editions. But that's obviously not an option for you.

I don't use ActiveState Python, but is there a newer version you could use? The source ships with project files for VS2008, and I'm pretty sure the python.org binary builds stopped using VS2003 a while ago.

Answer 2

The main problem is C run-time library. Python 2.4/2.5 linked against msvcr71.dll and therefore all C-extensions should be linked against this dll.

Another option is to use gcc (mingw) instead of VS2005, you can use it to compile python extensions only. There is decent installer that allows you to configure gcc as default compiler for your Python version:

http://www.develer.com/oss/GccWinBinaries