Python distutils, how to get a compiler that is going to be used?

This is an expanded version of Luper Rouch's answer that worked for me to get an openmp extension to compile using both mingw and msvc on windows. After subclassing build_ext you need to pass it to setup.py in the cmdclass arg. By subclassing build_extensions instead of finalize_options you'll have the actual compiler object to look into, so you can then get more detailed version information. You could eventually set compiler flags on a per-compiler, per-extension basis:

from distutils.core import setup, Extension from distutils.command.build_ext import build_ext copt = {'msvc': ['/openmp', '/Ox', '/fp:fast','/favor:INTEL64','/Og'] , 'mingw32' : ['-fopenmp','-O3','-ffast-math','-march=native'] } lopt = {'mingw32' : ['-fopenmp'] } class build_ext_subclass( build_ext ): def build_extensions(self): c = self.compiler.compiler_type if copt.has_key(c): for e in self.extensions: e.extra_compile_args = copt[ c ] if lopt.has_key(c): for e in self.extensions: e.extra_link_args = lopt[ c ] build_ext.build_extensions(self) mod = Extension('_wripaca', sources=['../wripaca_wrap.c', '../../src/wripaca.c'], include_dirs=['../../include'] ) setup (name = 'wripaca', ext_modules = [mod], py_modules = ["wripaca"], cmdclass = {'build_ext': build_ext_subclass } ) 

You can subclass the distutils.command.build_ext.build_ext command.

Once build_ext.finalize_options() method has been called, the compiler type is stored in self.compiler.compiler_type as a string (the same as the one passed to the build_ext's --compiler option, e.g. 'mingw32', 'gcc', etc...).

#This should work pretty good def compilerName(): import re import distutils.ccompiler comp = distutils.ccompiler.get_default_compiler() getnext = False for a in sys.argv[2:]: if getnext: comp = a getnext = False continue #separated by space if a == '--compiler' or re.search('^-[a-z]*c$', a): getnext = True continue #without space m = re.search('^--compiler=(.+)', a) if m == None: m = re.search('^-[a-z]*c(.+)', a) if m: comp = m.group(1) return comp print "Using compiler " + '"' + compilerName() + '"' 

import sys sys.argv.extend(['--compiler', 'msvc']) 

class BuildWithDLLs(build): # On Windows, we install the git2.dll too. def _get_dlls(self): # return a list of of (FQ-in-name, relative-out-name) tuples. ret = [] bld_ext = self.distribution.get_command_obj('build_ext') compiler_type = bld_ext.compiler.compiler_type 

You can use self.distribution.get_command_obj('build_ext') to get build_ext instance, and then get the compiler_type

import distutils.ccompiler

compiler_name = distutils.ccompiler.get_default_compiler()