[vtk-developers] Make install and python

[Prabhu Ramachandran]

>>>>> "DG" == David Gobbi <dgobbi at irus.rri.ca> writes:

    DG> On 1 May 2002, Andy Cedilnik wrote:
    >> Any special reason why make install does not install python
    >> modules?

    DG> It sure would be nice.  It just hasn't been done yet.  Prabhu
    DG> will probably have more to say on this, he has thought about
    DG> it more than anyone else.

    DG> IMHO the proper place to install the modules (both the .py and
    DG> .so files) is in <path-to-python>/site-packages/VTKXX/ on UNIX
    DG> machines and <path-to-python>/VTKXX/ on Windows machines where
    DG> XX is the VTK version number e.g. 40, 42, etc.

    DG> The cleanest way to do this might be to provide a setup.py
    DG> file that works with the python distutils, and to have 'make
    DG> install' run the setup.py script.

Well, its not so simple.  I've documented what needs to be done in the
Wrapping/Python/README.txt (read the Information for Packagers
section).  

The trouble is that all the libvtk*Python.so's need to be in *both*
PYTHONPATH *and* in LD_LIBRARY_PATH.  This might be painful to do
using distutils alone.

Under Windows, I find that you dont need to put the vtk*Python.dll's
into a directory in your PATH.  All other dlls *including* the
vtkRenderingPythonTkWidgets.dll should go into a directory in PATH.

So, I'm not sure if there is a simple solution.  I'll admit I haven't
yet thought hard about how to write a python setup.py to do this job
cleanly on all platforms but it doesn't look too easy.

prabhu