How to compile pysqlite for Windows

If you are reading this page that means you know that pysqlite is and probably need updated version of this python extension for windows compiled against newer version of SQLite. Why would anyone need it? Perhaps because of fixed bugs or SQLAlchemy complaining that you need a better SQLite version as it happened in my case.

Original instructions are available for discontinued MS Toolkit Compiler at http://initd.org/pub/software/pysqlite/doc/install-source-win32.html and these are for MinGW compiler. First of all you need to install MinGW somewhere and preferably add directory with gcc.exe into %PATH%. Then unpack pysqslite sources, edit setup.cfg to look like this:

[build_ext]
define=
include_dirs=sqlite3
library_dirs=sqlite3
libraries=sqlite3

That means sqlite3/ directory should contain additional includes and libraries required to compile the extension. These are sqlite3.dll and sqlite3.h available at SQLite downloads from sqlite-source-x_x_x.zip and sqlitedll-3_3_17.zip archives. Unpack them into sqlite3/subdirectory of already unpacked pysqlite source. Now issue:

setup.py build --compiler=mingw32

If everything compiles Ok patch setup.py to carry sqlite3.dll inside to avoid messages about missing .dll

--- pysqlite-2.3.3/setup_old.py    Sun Jan 14 02:56:12 2007
+++ pysqlite-2.3.3/setup.py    Mon May 28 15:59:05 2007
@@ -109,7 +109,9 @@
                     + glob.glob("doc/*.txt") \
                     + glob.glob("doc/*.css")),
                  ("pysqlite2-doc/code",
-                        glob.glob("doc/code/*.py"))]
+                        glob.glob("doc/code/*.py")),
+                   ("Lib/site-packages/pysqlite2",
+                        ["sqlite3/sqlite3.dll"])]

   py_modules = ["sqlite"]
   setup_args = dict(

Then build an installer to save your work for the future. I saved mine at http://rainforce.org/sqlite/bindings/

setup.py bdist_wininst

How to compile SQLite for Windows

Here you will see how to compile SQLite for Windows with MinGW and without TCL. For bots.

How to install MINGW

1. Download necessary files from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=2435
   At the moment these are:
   MSYS-1.0.10.EXE
   MinGW-5.0.0.EXE
2. Install MSYS ("minimal system" - some kind of unix emulator) to D:\MSYS (for example). If you see prompt to execute post install instructions you may say no, because you probably do not have MinGW or MSYS previously installed.
   
3. Install MinGW (with GPP option necessary for SQLite) to D:\MSYS\mingw
   Installator didn't work with my proxy, so each file used by MinGW-5.0.0.EXE was downloaded separately and placed into installator's directory. Some downloaded files with newer versions than installer could understand were renamed to make it happy. List of packages required by MinGW-5.0.0.exe installer:
   binutils-2.15.91-20040904-1.tar.gz
   gcc-core-3.4.2-20040916-1.tar.gz
   mingw-runtime-3.9.tar.gz (renamed to mingw-runtime-3.8.tar.gz)
   w32api-3.5.tar.gz (renamed to w32api-3.3.tar.gz)
   gcc-g++-3.4.2-20040916-1.tar.gz (C++ preprocessor required by SQLite configure)
   
4. After installer finished your environment is ready. Launch MSYS to start working. Home directory in this case ("cd ~") is located at D:\MSYS\home\yourusername if you need to find out where to place you files from windows to be found in MSYS.
5. Optionally if you will need to run additional developer tools such as autoconf or automake, these are available through separate msysDTK-1.0.1.exe installer from the sourceforge download page above.
   

How to compile SQLite

1. Download SQLite and upack it into subdirectory "sqlite" (for example) of your MSYS home directory (something like D:\MSYS\home\techtonik in my case)
2. Launch MSYS
3. cd sqlite
4. mkdir bld; cd bld
5. ../configure --disable-tcl
6. This will create "tsrc" directory with all necessary files to compile SQLite
   make target_source
   cd tsrc
   
7. Since there is no TCL libraries, tclsqlite.c should be removed to avoid errors during compilation (this is purely optional)
   mv tclsqlite.c tclsqlite.c.unused
   
8. Compile sources with a some optimization (-O2 flag).
   gcc -O2 -DNDEBUG=1 -DTHREADSAFE=1 -c *.c
9. Link compiled object (*.o) files to make sqlite3.exe (-s tell gcc to strip additional info used for debug)
   gcc -s -o sqlite3 *.o
10. Remove shell.o object file used as entry point for command line utility. Useless for DLL.
    rm shell.o
    
11. Link compiled object (*.o) files to make .dll The command below tells GCC to link all object files into one shared library (for windows it is .dll) and make functions listed in .def available for use to external programs (export). sqlite3.def file can be found in official sqlitedll-x_x_x.zip distribution
    gcc -shared -s -o sqlite3.dll *.o *.def
    
12. There is one more thing you may need in future if you would like to compile other programs with SQLite support. It is import library. To make one for MinGW (called libsqlite3.dll.a) link .dll with command
    gcc -shared -s -o sqlite3.dll *.o *.def -Wl,--out-implib,libsqlite3.dll.a
13. Wrap release.
    mkdir ../release
    cp sqlite3.dll sqlite3.exe libsqlite3.dll.a sqlite3.h ../release
    cd ../release
    

That's all. If you want reduce the size of .dll by several kbytes use strip --strip-unneeded command. By default strip will remove all symbols from file, but with this key it doesn't remove information needed for .dll relocation.

Ready to use files for SQLite 3.3.17 are available at http://rainforce.org/sqlite/