Compiling Python To Native Code?

Possible Duplicate: Is it feasible to compile Python to machine code? Is it possible to compile Python code (plus its dependencies, plus the interpreter library) into a single, n

Solution 1:

Shed Skin can compile Python to C++, but only a restricted subset of it. Some aspects of Python are very difficult to compile to native code.

Solution 2:

The short answer is no, and that is going to go for almost any language: any program you write is going to depend on some external libraries even if just the Windows system DLLs.

If you wrote a C program and compiled it with Microsoft's compiler you would still need the C runtime libraries to be installed. Chances are they already will be on most systems but it isn't guaranteed. Likewise even if you managed to compile a C Python interpreter statically linked to its libraries you still have to get the C runtime from somewhere.

What I suspect you are really asking is whether you can compile to a single .exe that depends only on libraries which you have a reasonable expectation of already being installed. So it all depends on what you are willing to consider part of the base system? Can you assume .Net framework 4 or Silverlight are installed? If so you might want to look at IronPython.

Likewise pypy can be built with either the Visual Studio toolchain or MinGW but I'm pretty sure in both cases you'll still need some external libraries at runtime.