Build wheels for Windows 32-bit (i.e., `ziglang-0.X.Y-py3-none-win32.whl`)

[agriyakhetarpal]

Description

Hi! I see on https://ziglang.org/download/ that since versions v0.10.0 and later the Zig programming language has had 32-bit binaries, and it now regularly publishes binaries for development versions of v0.13.0 at the time of writing; I wonder if it would be possible to build 32-bit Windows wheels based on those binaries and ship them with PyPI as well.

Proposed implementation

I see that make_wheels.py is used to build wheels instead of the traditional setup.py format, and no source distributions are distributed, as described in #2 – that makes sense.

I think this should be done by:

1. adding an x86-windows key-value pair to the ZIG_PYTHON_PLATFORMS constant, and
2. the platform tag for the wheel should then be mapped to win32 – which is the value of sysconfig.get_platform(), mostly, but it can be better extracted from wheel.bdist.wheel.get_tag in these lines:

   zig-pypi/make_wheels.py

   Lines 130 to 135 in 33c05bb

   	return write_wheel(out_dir,
   	name='ziglang',
   	version=version,
   	tag=f'py3-none-{platform}',
   	metadata={
   	'Summary': 'Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal, and reusable software.',

3. and then these lines

   zig-pypi/make_wheels.py

   Lines 152 to 165 in 33c05bb

   	def fetch_zig_version_info():
   	with urllib.request.urlopen(ZIG_VERSION_INFO_URL) as request:
   	return json.loads(request.read())
   	def fetch_and_write_ziglang_wheels(
   	outdir='dist/', zig_version='master', wheel_version_suffix='', platforms=tuple()
   	):
   	Path(outdir).mkdir(exist_ok=True)
   	if not platforms:
   	platforms = list(ZIG_PYTHON_PLATFORMS)
   	zig_versions_info = fetch_zig_version_info()

   can then download this extra platform with urllib and package the binary up into an extra wheel without ABI tags as usual.

The command-line argument parser can then work as usual, just with a new available option.

Additional context

I would be happy to implement the changes myself here – they look quite minimal, and would be happy to get a chance to contribute :) I have decided to open an issue first to gauge thoughts from maintainers and core developers.

I'm using zig cc as a build-time dependency for my Python package for cross-compiling uses, where the absence of a 32-bit Windows wheel would break building off of the source distribution (since a source distribution isn't planned or worth any use for Zig and just wheels are uploaded). I can very well remove that breakage with a conditional dependency specifier in the form of something like

[build-system]
requires = [
  "setuptools>=64",
  "wheel==0.42.0",
  "ziglang==0.11.0; platform_machine != 'x86' and platform_system == 'Windows'",
  ]
build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"

to restrict it for just this platform and architecture (while keeping it for others), but since PyPI's Zig isn't being built from source, I thought I should really propose the addition here.

[agriyakhetarpal]

Ah, I see that there have been issues with Zig on i386 before :) based on #8 and ziglang/zig#537. I still think providing a binary through PyPI would be useful even if the release is not offering top-tier support for users, considering that the Downloads page has it.

[whitequark]

I still think providing a binary through PyPI would be useful even if the release is not offering top-tier support for users, considering that the Downloads page has it.

Sure--happy to merge a PR!

[whitequark]

I built 32-bit wheels, can you please confirm that these wheels work well? https://mega.nz/file/MlwliBoL#FtiKyeygLHczynTRKPpvexm-ET1clP-g4hHrIqaqZgY

[whitequark]

I didn't test them on Windows but on a 32-bit wineprefix they work fine.

[agriyakhetarpal]

I think so, too. I don't have easy access to a Windows build :) thanks for the merge!

[whitequark]

I've uploaded both 0.11.0 and 0.12.0 win32 wheels to PyPI.

https://pypi.org/project/ziglang/0.12.0/
https://pypi.org/project/ziglang/0.11.0/