Packaging the linux reader API shared library with the Python package

[willjschmitt]

We rely on Linux primarily for our data processing, and we use a hermetic build-system (bazel) to try to keep our dependency tree super explicit and not require externally-installed binaries. I see the Windows DLLs are vendored into the repo, but not the Linux SOs. I know the readme explains needing to install it, but is there rationale why not to bundle the linux shared libs? Would it make a difference if this was published as a wheel to PyPI?

[glaure]

Hi,

the reason for that is a build issue. In Windows we can statically link the dll so that it has nearly no dependencies to the running operating system. In Windows we have "one binary fits all".

Linux builds instead tie heavy into distribution libraries:

• Boost libraries (a lot)
• XML Parser

Usually these are only dynamically linked, making the resulting binary not portable to other Linux distributions.

I personally lack the experience in enhancing our pip package into handling this issue.

We may look into this issue in future as I can clearly see the benefit.

BR Gunther

[glaure]

I will look into https://github.com/pypa/manylinux

A package working for many Linux distributions would be great.

By Gunther