Fails to install on Windows

[stefnotch]

A colleague and I tried installing OGDF-Python on Windows.

The colleague tried it with pip, which failed. I tried it with uv on Windows 11, which also failed.

Steps to reproduce

1. Get UV (or pip) on Windows

uv init some-demo
uv add ogdf-python[quickstart]

This results in the following error

Using CPython 3.13.3
Creating virtual environment at: .venv
Resolved 115 packages in 2.53s
 × Failed to build `ogdf-wheel==2023.9`
 ├─▶ The build backend returned an error
 ╰─▶ Call to `hatchling.build.build_wheel` failed (exit code: 1)

 [stdout]
 Set wheel tag to py3-none-win_amd64

 Config
 {'artifacts': [],
 'build_hooks': ('custom',),
 'dependencies': [],
 'extra_metadata': {},
 'force_include': {},
 'force_include_editable': {},
 'infer_tag': False,
 'pure_python': False,
 'shared_data': {},
 'shared_scripts': {},
 'tag': 'py3-none-win_amd64'}
 {'_BuilderConfig__build_config': {'ignore-vcs': True,
 'targets': {'sdist': {'exclude': ['cmake_build',
 'dist',
 'wheelhouse',
 '.git*']},
 'wheel': {'exclude': ['cmake_build',
 'dist',
 'wheelhouse',
 '.git*',
 'hatch_build.py',
 'test_*.py'],
 'hooks': {'custom': {}}}}},
 '_BuilderConfig__builder': <hatchling.builders.wheel.WheelBuilder object at 0x00000217695196A0>,
 '_BuilderConfig__exclude_all': False,
 '_BuilderConfig__plugin_name': 'wheel',
 '_BuilderConfig__root':
 'C:\\Users\\Stefnotch\\AppData\\Local\\uv\\cache\\sdists-v9\\pypi\\ogdf-wheel\\2023.9\\lybCf4tAJyalrkxzFzCZo\\src',
 '_BuilderConfig__target_config': {'exclude': ['cmake_build',
 'dist',
 'wheelhouse',
 '.git*',
 'hatch_build.py',
 'test_*.py'],
 'hooks': {'custom': {}}},
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__core_metadata_constructor': None,
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__extra_metadata': None,
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__macos_max_compat': None,
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__shared_data': None,
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__shared_scripts': None,
 '_WheelBuilderConfig__strict_naming': None,
 'build_artifact_spec': None,
 'build_force_include': {},
 'build_reserved_paths': set(),
 'hook_config': {'custom': {}}}


 Running cmake
 C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\sdists-v9\pypi\ogdf-wheel\2023.9\lybCf4tAJyalrkxzFzCZo\src\ogdf
 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON
 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\sdists-v9\pypi\ogdf-wheel\2023.9\lybCf4tAJyalrkxzFzCZo\src\src\ogdf_wheel\install
 -DOGDF_USE_ASSERT_EXCEPTIONS=ON -DOGDF_MEMORY_MANAGER=POOL_TS -DOGDF_WARNING_ERRORS=OFF
 -DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH=$ORIGIN;@loader_path -DCMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH=$ORIGIN;@loader_path -DMACOSX_RPATH=TRUE

 [stderr]
 Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<string>", line 11, in <module>
 wheel_filename = backend.build_wheel("C:\\Users\\Stefnotch\\AppData\\Local\\uv\\cache\\builds-v0\\.tmpASz6Rw",
 {}, None)
 File "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\builds-v0\.tmpXMbJLD\Lib\site-packages\hatchling\build.py",
 line 58, in build_wheel
 return os.path.basename(next(builder.build(directory=wheel_directory, versions=['standard'])))
 ~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File
 "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\builds-v0\.tmpXMbJLD\Lib\site-packages\hatchling\builders\plugin\interface.py",
 line 147, in build
 build_hook.initialize(version, build_data)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File
 "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\sdists-v9\pypi\ogdf-wheel\2023.9\lybCf4tAJyalrkxzFzCZo\src\hatch_build.py",
 line 131, in initialize
 self.run("cmake", self.ogdf_src_dir, *flags)
 ~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File
 "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Local\uv\cache\sdists-v9\pypi\ogdf-wheel\2023.9\lybCf4tAJyalrkxzFzCZo\src\hatch_build.py",
 line 84, in run
 return subprocess.run(args, capture_output=False, check=True, cwd=self.cmake_build_dir)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Roaming\uv\python\cpython-3.13.3-windows-x86_64-none\Lib\subprocess.py", line
 554, in run
 with Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs) as process:
 ~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Roaming\uv\python\cpython-3.13.3-windows-x86_64-none\Lib\subprocess.py", line
 1039, in __init__
 self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 pass_fds, cwd, env,
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 ...<5 lines>...
 gid, gids, uid, umask,
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 start_new_session, process_group)
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\Stefnotch\AppData\Roaming\uv\python\cpython-3.13.3-windows-x86_64-none\Lib\subprocess.py", line
 1551, in _execute_child
 hp, ht, pid, tid = _winapi.CreateProcess(executable, args,
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 # no special security
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 ...<4 lines>...
 cwd,
 ^^^^
 startupinfo)
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
 FileNotFoundError: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified

 hint: This usually indicates a problem with the package or the build environment.
 help: If you want to add the package regardless of the failed resolution, provide the `--frozen` flag to skip
 locking and syncing

It seems like installing ogdf-wheel fails.

I'm happy to try out other things, just let me know.

[N-Coder]

Unfortunately I never got ogdf-python to reliably work on Windows, even with a custom-built OGDF shared library instead of using the prebuilt ogdf-wheel. This is probably an issue with how DLLs work on windows and how the cppyy library generates bindings for them, but I'm neither a Windows user nor an expert with how things work there. If you (or someone you know) knows more about this, I'd be glad about help.

A workaround until then is to simply use python (or Jupyter) within WSL, there everything should work nicely.