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#################### Nuitka User Manual ####################
This document is the recommended first read when you start using Nuitka. On this page, you will learn more about Nuitka fundamentals, such as license type, use cases, requirements, and credits.
.. contents:: Table of Contents :depth: 1 :local: :class: page-toc
Nuitka is the Python compiler. It is written in Python. It is a seamless replacement or extension to the Python interpreter and compiles every construct that Python 2 (2.6, 2.7) and Python 3 (3.4 - 3.12) have, when itself run with that Python version.
It then executes uncompiled code and compiled code together in an extremely compatible manner.
You can use all Python library modules and all extension modules freely.
Nuitka translates the Python modules into a C level program that then
uses libpython
and static C files of its own to execute in the same
way as CPython does.
All optimization is aimed at avoiding overhead, where it's unnecessary. None is aimed at removing compatibility, although slight improvements will occasionally be done, where not every bug of standard Python is emulated, e.g. more complete error messages are given, but there is a full compatibility mode to disable even that.
Requirements
To ensure smooth operation of Nuitka, make sure to follow system requirements, that include the following components:
.. contents:: :depth: 1 :local:
C Compiler
You need a C compiler with support for C11 or alternatively a C++ compiler for C++03 [#]_.
Currently, this means, you need to use one of these compilers:
-
The MinGW64 C11 compiler, on Windows, must be based on gcc 11.2 or higher. It will be automatically downloaded if no usable C compiler is found, which is the recommended way of installing it, as Nuitka will also upgrade it for you.
-
Visual Studio 2022 or higher on Windows [#]_. English language pack for best results (Nuitka filters away garbage outputs, but only for English language). It will be used by default if installed.
-
On all other platforms, the
gcc
compiler of at least version 5.1, and below that theg++
compiler of at least version 4.4 as an alternative. -
The
clang
compiler on macOS X and most FreeBSD architectures. -
On Windows, the
clang-cl
compiler on Windows can be used if provided by the Visual Studio installer.
.. [#]
Support for this C11 is given with gcc 5.x or higher or any clang version.
The older MSVC compilers don't do it yet. But as a workaround, with Python 3.10 or older, the C++03 language standard is significantly overlapping with C11, it is then used instead.
.. [#]
Download for free from https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs.aspx (the community editions work just fine).
The latest version is recommended, but not required. On the other hand, there is no need to except to support pre-Windows 10 versions, and they might work for you, but support of these configurations is only available to commercial users.
Python
Python 2 (2.6, 2.7) and Python 3 (3.4 — 3.12) are supported. If at any moment, there is a stable Python release that is not in this list, rest assured it is being worked on and will be added.
.. important::
For Python 3.4 and only that version, we need other Python version as a compile time dependency.
Nuitka itself is fully compatible with all listed versions, but Scons as an internally used tool is not.
For these versions, you need a Python2 or Python 3.5 or higher installed as well, but only during the compile time. That is for use with Scons (which orchestrates the C compilation), which does not support the same Python versions as Nuitka.
In addition, on Windows, Python2 cannot be used because clcache
does not work with it, there a Python 3.5 or higher needs to be
installed.
Nuitka finds these needed Python versions (e.g. on Windows via registry) and you shouldn't notice it as long as they are installed.
Increasingly, other functionality is available when another Python
has a certain package installed. For example, onefile compression
will work for a Python 2.x when another Python is found that has the
zstandard
package installed.
.. admonition:: Moving binaries to other machines
The created binaries can be made executable independent of the Python
installation, with --standalone
and --onefile
options.
.. admonition:: Binary filename suffix
The created binaries have an .exe
suffix on Windows. On other
platforms they have no suffix for standalone mode, or .bin
suffix, that you are free to remove or change, or specify with the
-o
option.
The suffix for acceleration mode is added just to be sure that the original script name and the binary name do not ever collide, so we can safely overwrite the binary without destroying the original source file.
.. admonition:: It has to be CPython, Anaconda Python, or Homebrew
You need the standard Python implementation, called "CPython", to execute Nuitka because it is closely tied to implementation details of it.
.. admonition:: It cannot be from the Windows app store
It is known that Windows app store Python definitely does not work, it's checked against.
.. admonition:: It cannot be pyenv on macOS
It is known that macOS "pyenv" does not work. Use Homebrew instead for self compiled Python installations. But note that standalone mode will be worse on these platforms and not be as backward compatible with older macOS versions.
Operating System
Supported Operating Systems: Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, macOS, and Windows (32 bits/64 bits/ARM).
Others will work as well. The portability is expected to be generally good, but the e.g. Nuitka's internal Scons usage may have to be adapted or need flags passed. Make sure to match Python and C compiler architecture, or else you will get cryptic error messages.
Architecture
Supported Architectures are x86, x86_64 (amd64), and arm, likely many, many more.
Other architectures are expected to also work, out of the box, as Nuitka is generally not using any hardware specifics. These are just the ones tested and known to be good. Feedback is welcome. Generally, the architectures that Debian supports can be considered good and tested, too.
Usage
Command Line
The recommended way of executing Nuitka is <the_right_python> -m nuitka
to be absolutely certain which Python interpreter you are
using, so it is easier to match with what Nuitka has.
The next best way of executing Nuitka bare that is from a source
checkout or archive, with no environment variable changes, most
noteworthy, you do not have to mess with PYTHONPATH
at all for
Nuitka. You just execute the nuitka
and nuitka-run
scripts
directly without any changes to the environment. You may want to add the
bin
directory to your PATH
for your convenience, but that step
is optional.
Moreover, if you want to execute with the right interpreter, in that
case, be sure to execute <the_right_python> bin/nuitka
and be good.
.. admonition:: Pick the right Interpreter
If you encounter a SyntaxError
you absolutely most certainly have
picked the wrong interpreter for the program you are compiling.
Nuitka has a --help
option to output what it can do:
.. code:: bash
nuitka --help
The nuitka-run
command is the same as nuitka
, but with a
different default. It tries to compile and directly execute a Python
script:
.. code:: bash
nuitka-run --help
This option that is different is --run
, and passing on arguments
after the first non-option to the created binary, so it is somewhat more
similar to what plain python
will do.
Installation
For most systems, there will be packages on the download page <https://nuitka.net/doc/download.html>
__ of Nuitka. But you can also
install it from source code as described above, but also like any other
Python program it can be installed via the normal python setup.py install
routine.
Notice for integration with GitHub workflows there is this
Nuitka-Action <https://github.com/Nuitka/Nuitka-Action>
__ that you
should use that makes it really easy to integrate. You ought to start
with a local compilation though, but this will be easiest for cross
platform compilation with Nuitka.
License
Nuitka is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0; you may not use it except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
Tutorial Setup and build on Windows
This is basic steps if you have nothing installed, of course if you have any of the parts, just skip it.
Setup
Install Python
-
Download and install Python from https://www.python.org/downloads/windows
-
Select one of
Windows x86-64 web-based installer
(64 bits Python, recommended) orx86 executable
(32 bits Python) installer. -
Verify it's working using command
python --version
.
Install Nuitka
-
python -m pip install nuitka
-
Verify using command
python -m nuitka --version
Write some code and test
Create a folder for the Python code
-
mkdir
HelloWorld -
make a python file named hello.py
.. code:: python
def talk(message): return "Talk " + message
def main(): print(talk("Hello World"))
if name == "main": main()
Test your program
Do as you normally would. Running Nuitka on code that works incorrectly is not easier to debug.
.. code:: bash
python hello.py
Build it using
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka hello.py
.. note::
This will prompt you to download a C caching tool (to speed up
repeated compilation of generated C code) and a MinGW64 based C
compiler, unless you have a suitable MSVC installed. Say yes
to
both those questions.
Run it
Execute the hello.exe
created near hello.py
.
Distribute
To distribute, build with --standalone
option, which will not output
a single executable, but a whole folder. Copy the resulting
hello.dist
folder to the other machine and run it.
You may also try --onefile
which does create a single file, but make
sure that the mere standalone is working, before turning to it, as it
will make the debugging only harder, e.g. in case of missing data files.
Use Cases
Use Case 1 — Program compilation with all modules embedded
If you want to compile a whole program recursively, and not only the single file that is the main program, do it like this:
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka --follow-imports program.py
.. note::
There are more fine-grained controls than --follow-imports
available. Consider the output of nuitka --help
. Including fewer
modules into the compilation, but instead using normal Python for it,
will make it faster to compile.
In case you have a source directory with dynamically loaded files, i.e.
one which cannot be found by recursing after normal import statements
via the PYTHONPATH
(which would be the recommended way), you can
always require that a given directory shall also be included in the
executable:
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka --follow-imports --include-plugin-directory=plugin_dir program.py
.. note::
If you don't do any dynamic imports, simply setting your
PYTHONPATH
at compilation time is what you should do.
Use --include-plugin-directory
only if you make __import__()
calls that Nuitka cannot predict, and that come from a directory, for
everything from your Python installation, use --include-module
or
--include-package
.
.. note::
The resulting filename will be program.exe
on Windows,
program.bin
on other platforms, but --output-filename
allows
changing that.
.. note::
The resulting binary still depends on CPython and used C extension modules being installed.
If you want to be able to copy it to another machine, use
--standalone
and copy the created program.dist
directory and
execute the program.exe
(Windows) or program
(other
platforms) put inside.
Use Case 2 — Extension Module compilation
If you want to compile a single extension module, all you have to do is this:
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka --module some_module.py
The resulting file some_module.so
can then be used instead of
some_module.py
.
.. important::
The filename of the produced extension module must not be changed as
Python insists on a module name derived function as an entry point,
in this case PyInit_some_module
and renaming the file will not
change that. Match the filename of the source code to what the binary
name should be.
.. note::
If both the extension module and the source code of it are in the same directory, the extension module is loaded. Changes to the source code only have effect once you recompile.
.. note::
The option --follow-import-to
works as well, but the included
modules will only become importable after you imported the
some_module
name. If these kinds of imports are invisible to
Nuitka, e.g. dynamically created, you can use --include-module
or
--include-package
in that case, but for static imports it should
not be needed.
.. note::
An extension module can never include other extension modules. You will have to create a wheel for this to be doable.
.. note::
The resulting extension module can only be loaded into a CPython of the same version and doesn't include other extension modules.
Use Case 3 — Package compilation
If you need to compile a whole package and embed all modules, that is also feasible, use Nuitka like this:
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka --module some_package --include-package=some_package
.. note::
The inclusion of the package contents needs to be provided manually;
otherwise, the package is mostly empty. You can be more specific if
you like, and only include part of it, or exclude part of it, e.g.
with --nofollow-import-to='*.tests'
you would not include the
unused test part of your code.
.. note::
Data files located inside the package will not be embedded by this
process, you need to copy them yourself with this approach.
Alternatively, you can use the file embedding of Nuitka commercial <https://nuitka.net/doc/commercial/protect-data-files.html>
__.
Use Case 4 — Program Distribution
For distribution to other systems, there is the standalone mode, which
produces a folder for which you can specify --standalone
.
.. code:: bash
python -m nuitka --standalone program.py
Following all imports is default in this mode. You can selectively
exclude modules by specifically saying --nofollow-import-to
, but
then an ImportError
will be raised when import of it is attempted at
program run time. This may cause different behavior, but it may also
improve your compile time if done wisely.
For data files to be included, use the option
--include-data-files=<source>=<target>
where the source is a file
system path, but the target has to be specified relative. For the
standalone mode, you can also copy them manually, but this can do extra
checks, and for the onefile mode, there is no manual copying possible.
To copy some or all file in a directory, use the option
--include-data-files=/etc/*.txt=etc/
where you get to specify shell
patterns for the files, and a subdirectory where to put them, indicated
by the trailing slash.
.. important::
Nuitka does not consider data files code, do not include DLLs, or Python files as data files, and expect them to work, they will not, unless you really know what you are doing.
In the following, non-code data files are all files, not matching on of these criterions.
+------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Suffix | Rationale | Solution |
+============+========================================================================================+========================================================================================================+
| .py
| Nuitka trims even the stdlib modules to