Re: Should python-build-system packages have native-inputs?

[Hartmut Goebel]

Am 28.04.2018 um 12:11 schrieb Chris Marusich:

I understand your concerns, and I understand why this is hard to get for
a Pythonista. But this is exactly why we added this section to the manual.

> Because the python-build-system never cross-compiles, 

This is an implementation detail which might might change. And if we
remove all inputs now, we need to add again them later. This is a lot of
work, I know since I've cleaned this up for all Python modules. IMHO
it's not a good idea for drop this knowledge from the code.

> If the
> python-build-system actually did support cross-compilation, then this
> might be a different story.

Maybe this is going to change somewhen :-) We should aim to the top, not
the status quo :-)



> My understanding is that the concept of "native-inputs" for a package
> only makes sense when that package uses a build system that can
> cross-compile,

This is my understanding, too. But the python-build-system might be able
to cross-compile somewhen and then this information is essential.

>> And for extension modules it would allow compiling on a faster
>> environment (e.g. x86 vs. ARMv4).
>>
>> (I was not aware of python packages are not cross-compiled, thus I can
>> only guess the reason why this is not possible: Python distutils may not
>> be able to *cross*-compile extension modules. Maybe we could work on this.)
> I am curious about extension modules.  I understand they are tied
> closely to the underlying architecture, but I have little experience
> with them, so I'm not sure how they relate to cross compilation.

Extension modules are simply modules or libraries  written in C/C++ or
other languages. Even modules written in Cython would be counted in
here, since they are translated to C and then compiled into platform
dependent code.

> In any
> case, it doesn't change the fact that today, the python-build-system
> does not cross-compile.

In any case, this is a current limitation only :-)

-- 
Regards
Hartmut Goebel

| Hartmut Goebel          | address@hidden               |
| www.crazy-compilers.com | compilers which you thought are impossible |

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