SOFA Stats

I was wanting to shrink the font of elements of the SOFA GUI dialogs so I could squeeze more in or relocate items to more logical positions. Can’t be that hard, surely? I have since discovered that if a drop-down list (wxPython wx.Choice widget) has lots of items e.g. 30+ it takes seconds for fresh items to be added the the widget if you are trying to use your own font selection (using setFont()) on Linux. SetItems() takes a long time as, presumably, it sets the font for each individual item. And given I can’t control how many items will appear in drop-down lists or avoid having to repopulate lists (e.g. new data table selected so variable lists have to be updated) the option of shrinking fonts is not viable. Back to the drawing board.

[UPDATE] I came up with a workaround. Because there is no performance problem when items are included with the initial instantiation of dropdown widgets, all dropdowns are rebuilt each time they are changed. This means they have to be destroyed before being replaced, and the panel they are on must be hidden temporarily to avoid flicker on Windows, but it works. The fact that I was able to clean up some code in the process almost compensates for the considerable extra work 🙂

As SOFA Statistics has gained more functionality it has grown in complexity – there are modules for reading Excel spreadsheets, connecting to Google Docs spreadsheets, displaying charts, displaying GUI widgets etc. Trying to make a single executable for Windows users was always going to be a challenge and would probably involve a lot of trial and error. So it proved.

But there was one technique I used to make the seemingly impossible task manageable. I made a single python script I called launch.py which was responsible for importing all the main modules the executable would need to handle (e.g. matplotlib, MySQLdb etc). I identified the imports I would need by looking at each and every main module in SOFA and adding any external library module imports not already included.

The process of making an executable failed initially, so by variously commenting and uncommenting parts of the launch script I was able to isolate problem modules and fix them. To get PostgreSQL working, for example, I needed to add the following fix:

try:
    # I needed to add the Postgres library directory to the PATH
    # variable in Windows. Apparently when Postgres is installed under Windows as a
    # service, this isn't done automatically (no need to) so that library isn't
    # available. [http://osdir.com/ml/python.db.pygresql/2008-03/msg00021.html]
    # OK to hardwire to version available to my installer dev environment. The user experience
    # will depend on whether they have set the PATH properly.
    os.environ['PATH'] += ";C:\\Program Files\\PostgreSQL\\9.1\\bin"
    import pgdb
except ImportError, e:
    pass

Here is the full text of launch.py:

#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from __future__ import absolute_import
from __future__ import division # so 5/2 = 2.5 not 2 !
from __future__ import print_function

# remove import __future__ from dbe_sqlite
import cgi
import codecs
from collections import defaultdict
from collections import namedtuple
import copy
import csv
import datetime
import decimal
import gettext
import glob
import locale
import math
from operator import itemgetter
import os
import platform
import pprint
import random
import re
import shutil
import socket
import subprocess
import sys
import time
import traceback
from types import IntType, FloatType, ListType, TupleType, StringType
import warnings
import weakref
import webbrowser
import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree
import zipfile

# Even though not used here pyinstaller won't know about it otherwise
# and will not have it when encountered in import2run.py/start.py etc

import MySQLdb as mysql
try:
    # I needed to add the Postgres library directory to the PATH
    # variable in Windows. Apparently when Postgres is installed under Windows as a
    # service, this isn't done automatically (no need to) so that library isn't
    # available. [http://osdir.com/ml/python.db.pygresql/2008-03/msg00021.html]
    # OK to hardwire to version available to my installer dev environment. The user experience
    # will depend on whether they have set the PATH properly.
    os.environ['PATH'] += ";C:\\Program Files\\PostgreSQL\\9.1\\bin"
    import pgdb
except ImportError, e:
    pass
import sqlite3 as sqlite # using sqlite3.dll from Python 2.7 so includes foreign key support

#import wxversion
#wxversion.select("2.8") # Not needed when using executable.

# http://groups.google.com/group/pyinstaller/browse_thread/thread/1b57e64ddc35e772
if not hasattr(sys, 'frozen'):
    import wxversion
    wxversion.select('2.8')
import wx 
import wx.lib.iewin as ie
import wx.gizmos
import wx.grid
import wx.html
try:
    from agw import hyperlink as hl
except ImportError: # if it's not there locally, try the wxPython lib.
    import wx.lib.agw.hyperlink as hl

# problem locating eggs folder - solution in http://www.pyinstaller.org/ticket/185
# change pyinstaller-1.5\support\_pyi_egg_install.py
#if os.path.isdir(d):
#    for fn in os.listdir(d):
#        sys.path.append(os.path.join(d, fn))


import numpy as np
#if hasattr(sys, 'frozen') and sys.frozen:
#    import numpy.core.ma
#    sys.modules['numpy.ma'] = sys.modules['numpy.core.ma'] 

# if include matplotlib before sys.path, matplotlib.collections shadows collections and won't find namedtuple

# Currently problem with Path in environment MATPLOTLIBDATA not a directory
# Must put mpl-data folder in same folder as the executable is finally run from

import matplotlib
#import matplotlib.numerix as Numerix
#from matplotlib.axes import _process_plot_var_args
#from matplotlib.backend_bases import FigureCanvasBase
#from matplotlib.backends.backend_agg import FigureCanvasAgg, RendererAgg
#from matplotlib.backends.backend_wxagg import FigureCanvasWxAgg
#from matplotlib.figure import Figure
#from matplotlib.font_manager import FontProperties
#from matplotlib.projections.polar import PolarAxes
#from matplotlib.transforms import Bbox

# connected to matplotlib
# don't exclude Tkinter, Tkconstants
import wxmpl
import pylab # must import after wxmpl so matplotlib.use() is always first
# don't import boomslang - trouble with import pylab in many cases, even import math.
# works fine if matplotlib baked into exe
#import boomslang

# no need to bake googleapi in as nothing installed as such. Just ensure not using stale pycs from Ubuntu system.
#import googleapi
# problem with import os etc if using below
#import googleapi.gdata.spreadsheet.service as gdata_spreadsheet_service
#import googleapi.gdata.spreadsheet as gdata_spreadsheet
#import googleapi.gdata.docs.service as gdata_docs_service
#import googleapi.gdata.service as gdata_service

# no need to bake xlrd in as nothing installed as such. Just ensure not using stale pycs from Ubuntu system.
#import xlrd

import adodbapi
import pywintypes
import win32api
import win32con
import win32com
import win32com.client

import dao36_from_genpy # go to makepy/genpy and look in py files till found - taken and rename and relocate so can directly call

import import2run

The code for SOFA is cross-platform and I start the Windows packaging process by copying everything across from Ubuntu. It is important in such a case to wipe all pyc files so that platform-specific ones are created for Windows and included in the executable creation process.

The final import statement is for import2run.py. This means that the executable doesn’t hardwire anything beyond the imports. As it happens I started by having import2run contain just the following line:

raw_input("Success!!")

Later, once all the basic imports were working, I changed it to:

import start

to actually load SOFA. NB the executable created using the technique described here doesn’t replace all the SOFA modules with a single executable – its purpose is to replace Python and all the extra libraries such as matplotlib. So the exe is expected to live in the main SOFA program folder (usually in C:\Program Files\sofastats) alongside the usual modules such as core_stats.py. If a user actually had Python 2.6 and all the libraries installed they could either use the exe or run start.py directly themselves. It would have the same effect.

Getting matplotlib to work took a while and involved many false leads. In the end the solution was to copy the entire mpl-data folder (from somewhere like C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\matplotlib) into the same folder as the sofastats.exe was going to end up.

Some final things I learned about Pyinstaller. –onedir is the default and adds the coll = COLLECT(…) part of the spec file. If making manual changes remember that if you want the onedir approach, don’t include a.binaries in the EXE(…) part and exclude_binaries should be True. If, like myself you want a single executable file, don’t bother with coll = COLLECT(…), include a.binaries, and set exclude_binaries to False. And while testing set debug=True and Console=True so you can see what is going wrong as you refine your spec file, launch.py script etc.

Although GUI2EXE is a wonderful program some aspects may not be compatible with Pyinstaller 1.5.1 so I now build my spec file using makespec.py with the –onefile argument. It works in its basic vanilla form for SOFA using launch.py. You can export the spec file GUI2EXE makes and see the differences.

Here is the final spec file I used:

# -*- mode: python -*-
# used MAKESPEC 1.5.1 with --onefile option
# NB must include mpl-data folder under main sofastats level (i.e. sibling of dbe_plugins etc) for matplotlib to work
# manually set level=9 in PYZ params (inspired by how GUI2EXE did it)
# manually replaced name=os.path.join('dist', 'launch.exe'), with name='C:\\sofastats_build_exe\\sofa.main\\sofastats.exe',
# manually set debug=True, upx=False in EXE params
# manually set exclude_binaries=False in EXE params

a = Analysis([os.path.join(HOMEPATH,'support\\_mountzlib.py'), os.path.join(HOMEPATH,'support\\useUnicode.py'), 'C:\\sofastats_build_exe\\sofa.main\\launch.py'],
             pathex=['C:\\Python26\\pyinstaller-1.5.1'])
pyz = PYZ(a.pure, level=9)
exe = EXE( pyz,
          a.scripts,
          a.binaries,
          a.zipfiles,
          a.datas,
          exclude_binaries=False,
          name='C:\\sofastats_build_exe\\sofa.main\\sofastats.exe',
          debug=True,
          strip=False,
          upx=False,
          console=True )

Before going live switch debug and console to False.

This post is largely specific to SOFA Statistics but hopefully it includes some tips which might save others a lot of fruitless struggle. If you have trouble, I found the pyinstaller mailing list people helpful.