[Python-Dev] PEP 0404 and VS 2010 (original) (raw)

martin at v.loewis.de martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Nov 21 12:31:30 CET 2013

Quoting Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com>:

Another alternative I'd prefer to an ABI version bump: backporting the "C runtime independence" aspects of the stable ABI to Python 2.7.

That sounds doable. If we provided a "python2.dll", would could make the header files using the "restricted API" by default if Python is compiled with VS 2010. Extension builders could then regularly compile their extensions with VS 2010, or VS 2013, despite Python itself being linked with the VS 2008 CRT.

Anybody releasing such binaries would either have to target Python 2.7.7, or distribute "python2.dll" along with the binary. It should actually be possible to provide a "python27vs2010.msi" upgrade package that only deploys the python2.dll and the updated header files, on top of an existing Python 2.7 installation.

I had originally planned to support the "stable ABI" in Python 2, but the PEP lagged, and I couldn't finish it in time for the 2.7 release.

If Chris could contribute to make this happen, it would be much appreciated.

Regards, Martin

P.S. Thinking about this, there are some issues. The "restricted API" hides the object layout of all objects, in particular of type objects. Adding the PEP 384 API (PyType_FromSpec) might be a bit heavy for 2.7.

So it might by better to provide a "py27compat.dll" instead which does not hide the structures (as they won't change during the remaining life of 2.7), but only hides any APIs and macros that directly expose CRT functionality.

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list