Update for 2.0b1. Also add more text, to be more explicit about

what the dozen+ subprojects are for, which are and aren't
expected to build out of the box, and what else is needed to get
them all to build.  Also explained that Alpha configurations
don't refer to pre-beta, but to the Alpha processor!  That's
baffled me for years <0.7 wink>.

1 files changed, 87 insertions, 29 deletions

diff --git a/PCbuild/readme.txt b/PCbuild/readme.txt
index ffdef46..061b7af 100644
--- a/PCbuild/readme.txt
+++ b/PCbuild/readme.txt
@@ -1,40 +1,98 @@
-Building Python using VC++ 5.0 or 6.0
+Building Python using VC++ 6.0 or 5.0
 -------------------------------------
-
-This directory is used to build Python for Win32 platforms,
-e.g. Windows 95, 98 and NT.  It requires Microsoft Visual C++ 6.x
-or 5.x.
+This directory is used to build Python for Win32 platforms, e.g. Windows
+95, 98 and NT.  It requires Microsoft Visual C++ 6.x or 5.x.
 (For other Windows platforms and compilers, see ../PC/readme.txt.)
+XXX There are still (Python 2.0b1) a few compiler warnings under VC6.
+XXX There are likely a few more under VC5.
+
+Unlike older versions, there's no longer a need to copy the project files
+from a subdirectory of PC/ to the PCbuild directory -- they come in PCbuild.
 
-Unlike previous versions, there's no longer a need to copy the project
-files from the PC/vc5x subdirectory to the PCbuild directory -- they
-come in PCbuild.
+All you need to do is open the workspace "pcbuild.dsw" in MSVC++, select
+the Debug or Release setting (using Build -> Set Active Configuration...),
+and build the projects.
 
-All you need to do is open the workspace "pcbuild.dsw" in MSVC++,
-select the Debug or Release setting (using Set Active
-Configuration... in the Build menu), and build the projects.
+The proper order to build subprojects is:
 
-The proper order to build is
+1) python20 (this builds the main Python DLL and library files,
+             python20.{dll, lib})
 
-1) python16 (this builds python16.dll and python16.lib)
-2) python   (this builds python.exe)
-3) the other subprojects
+2) python   (this builds the main Python executable, python.exe)
 
-Some subprojects require that you have distributions of other
-software: Tcl/Tk, bsddb and zlib.  If you don't have these, you can't
-build the corresponding extensions.  If you do have them, you may have
-to change the project settings to point to the right include files,
-libraries etc.
+3) the other subprojects, as desired or needed (note:  you probably don't
+   want to build most of the other subprojects, unless you're building an
+   entire Python distribution from scratch, or specifically making changes
+   to the subsystems they implement; see SUBPROJECTS below)
 
 When using the Debug setting, the output files have a _d added to
-their name: python16_d.dll, python_d.exe, parser_d.pyd, and so on.
+their name:  python20_d.dll, python_d.exe, parser_d.pyd, and so on.
+
+SUBPROJECTS
+-----------
+These subprojects should build out of the box.  Subprojects other than the 
+main ones (python20, python, pythonw) generally build a DLL (renamed to 
+.pyd) from a specific module so that users don't have to load the code 
+supporting that module unless they import the module.
+
+python20
+    .dll and .lib
+python
+    .exe
+pythonw
+    pythonw.exe, a variant of python.exe that doesn't pop up a DOS box
+_socket
+    socketmodule.c
+_sre
+    Unicode-aware regular expression engine
+mmap
+    mmapmodule.c
+parser
+    the parser module
+select
+    selectmodule.c
+unicodedata
+    large tables of Unicode data
+winreg
+    Windows registry API
+winsound
+    play sounds (typically .wav files) under Windows
+
+The following subprojects will generally NOT build out of the box.  They
+wrap code Python doesn't control, and you'll need to download the base
+packages first (study the subproject structure from within MSVC to see
+where each expects to find the unpacked packages):
+
+_tkinter
+    Python wrapper for the Tk windowing system.  Requires tcl831.exe from
+        http://dev.scriptics.com/software/tcltk/downloadnow83.tml
+
+zlib
+    Python wrapper for the zlib compression library.  Requires
+        http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll/zlib133dll.zip
+    and
+        ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/png/src/zlib133.zip
+
+bsddb
+    Python wrapper for the BSD database 1.85.  Requires bsddbmodule.zip,
+    from the bsddb link at
+        http://www.nightmare.com/software.html
+
+pyexpat
+    Python wrapper for accelerated XML parsing.  Requires
+        ftp://ftp.jclark.com/pub/xml/expat.zip
+
+
+NOTE ON CONFIGURATIONS
+----------------------
+Under Build -> Configuration ..., you'll find several Alpha configurations,
+such as "Win32 Alpha Release".  These do not refer to alpha versions (as in
+alpha, beta, final), but to the DEC/COMPAQ Alpha processor.  Ignore them if
+you're not building on an Alpha box.
 
-If you want to create your own extension module DLL, there's an
-example with easy-to-follow instructions in ../PC/example/; read the
-file readme.txt there first.
 
-Pointers:
-Python	http://www.python.org
-Tcl/Tk	http://dev.scriptics.com
-zlib	http://www.winimage.com/zLibDll
-bsddb	Sam Rushing's web/ftp site
+YOUR OWN EXTENSION DDLs
+-----------------------
+If you want to create your own extension module DLL, there's an example
+with easy-to-follow instructions in ../PC/example/; read the file
+readme.txt there first.