This chapter briefly explains how to create a Windows extension module
for Python using Microsoft Visual C++, and follows with more
detailed background information on how it works. The explanatory
material is useful for both the Windows programmer learning to build
Python extensions and the Unix programmer interested in producing
software which can be successfully built on both Unix and Windows.
Module authors are encouraged to use the distutils approach for
building extension modules, instead of the one described in this
section. You will still need the C compiler that was used to build
Python; typically Microsoft Visual C++.
Note:
This chapter mentions a number of filenames that include an encoded
Python version number. These filenames are represented with the
version number shown as "XY"; in practive, "X" will
be the major version number and "Y" will be the minor
version number of the Python release you're working with. For
example, if you are using Python 2.2.1, "XY" will actually be
"22".
