[Jeff Kowalczyk]
I would like to know more about installing C extension-using modules such as PyXML into Zope's Python Layout.
I installed the "PyXML 0.7 (For Python 2.2)" windows binary distribution into my separate Python 2.2 installation, and it used C:\progra~1\Python\Lib\site-packages\ to do its intermediate build operations. That path was found from a known registry key by the installer, but I had the opportunity to choose something else. The built modules were installed under Python\Lib\xml\, as expected.
If I were to use "PyXML 0.7 (For Python 2.1)" and install it into my Zope installation on the same machine, would I select a path of C:\progra~1\Zope\bin\lib\site-packages\, where I create \site-packages manually before the install?
I finesse the issue by installing it in my main Python installation first. Then I copy the pyxml tree into the Zope\bin folder - that way, it ends up in the same relative position relative to Zope's python.exe as it was in the original installation. Workd fine. You should be easily able to afford the extra disk space. The only downside is keeping both copies of pyxml in sync if you apply any patches. But I haven't found that to be a problem in practice. Incidentally, pyxml has a small bug in xpath, and another one that keeps the xslt function document() from finding local files on Windows systems. I posted bug fixes for these two on the pyxml list a few weeks ago. If you can't find them, email me and I'll send them to you (I don't have them here on this computer). Cheers, Tom P