Question

I already attempted using py2exe (not compatible with ipy) and PYC (out of date). Can anyone point me in the direction of a good compiler?

Answer 1

You can use pyc.py, the Python Command-Line Compiler, which is included in IronPython since version 2.6 to compile a Python script to an executable. You find it at %IRONPYTONINSTALLDIR%\Tools\Scripts\pyc.py on your hard disk.

Example

Let’s assume you have a simple script test.py that just prints out something to console. You can turn this into an executable with the following command-line (assuming that the IronPython directory is the current directory and that test.py is in there, too):

ipy.exe Tools\Scripts\pyc.py /main:test.py /target:exe

_{Note: If you are using forms and don’t want a console window to open, you want to use /target:winexe instead of /target:exe.}

The result will be two files, test.dll and test.exe. test.dll will contain your actual script code, while test.exe is just a launcher for test.dll. You can distribute this EXE and DLL to other computers which do not have IronPython installed if you include the files

• IronPython.dll,
• Microsoft.Dynamic.dll,
• Microsoft.Scripting.Core.dll,
• Microsoft.Scripting.Debugging.dll,
• Microsoft.Scripting.dll,
• Microsoft.Scripting.ExtensionAttribute.dll and
• IronPython.Modules.dll (sometimes needed).

Also see the blog entry IronPython – how to compile exe.