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# Installation

Tip

You will find the latest version at http://code.google.com/p/pymunk/downloads/list

pymunk does not need to be installed. However, you might need to compile the chipmunk library that pymunk uses internally if a precompiled library was not included for your platform. The default pymunk distribution ships with at least 32-bit Windows and 32- and 64-bit Linux versions. But even if a compiled library is not shipped you should not despair! It is very easy to compile chipmunk as long as you have a gcc-compatible c compiler installed.

## Without installation

You might want to test pymunk before you install it on your development machine, or maybe decide to not install it at all. The easiest way to do this is to download the source release of pymunk and extract the archive to the folder where your code is and then tell python where to find it.

For example, lets say you have main.py and a folder named pymunk-3.0.0 that contain the full source of pymunk (files, including setup.py, README.txt and a folder named pymunk). Then you can add this before you include:

    import os, sys

    current_path = os.getcwd()
    sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join( current_path, "pymunk-3.0.0" ) )

    import pymunk

For a working demo, check out the run.py file in the examples folder of pymunk. It uses this exact technique to allow running the examples using the pymunk located on level up.

## Install pymunk

pymunk can be installed with pip install:

    > pip install pymunk

Another option is to install pymunk with one of the prebuilt installers if available (Windows) or you can use the standard setup.py way:

    > python setup.py install

If you are on Mac OS X or Linux you will probably need to run as a privileged user; for example using sudo:

    > sudo python setup.py install

Once installed you should be able to to import pymunk just as any other installed library. pymunk should also work just fine with virtualenv in case you want it installed in a contained environment.

Note

The setup will not check if the correct Chipmunk library was included or already compiled for you. It might be a good idea to first check that pymunk works before you actually install it. See Without installation

## Compile Chipmunk

If a compiled binary library of Chipmunk that works on your platform is not included in the release you will need to compile Chipmunk yourself. Another reason to compile chipmunk is if you want to run it in release mode to get rid of the debug prints it generates.

To compile Chipmunk:

    > python setup.py build_chipmunk

On Windows you will need to use a gcc-compatible compiler. The precompiled included windows binaries were compiled with a GCC installed from the TDM-GCC package http://tdm-gcc.tdragon.net/ To set the compiler use the compiler argument:

    > python setup.py build_chipmunk --compiler=mingw32

To compile Chipmunk in Release mode use the release argument (Useful to avoid some debug prints and asserts):

    > python setup.py build_chipmunk --release

See also

Module `pymunkoptions`
  Options module that control runtime options of pymunk such as debug settings. Use pymunkoptions together with release mode compilation to remove all debugs prints.

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