building Python from source with zlib support

Question

When building Python 3.2.3 from source on Ubuntu 12.04, the zlib module is not available.

I downloaded the official source distribution from python.org, and attempted to build and install it with the following commands.

tar xfa Python3.2.3.tar.bz2
cd Python-3.2.3
./configure --prefix=/opt/python3.2
make
sudo make install

The make command output includes the following.

Python build finished, but the necessary bits to build these modules were not found:
_curses            _curses_panel      _dbm            
_gdbm              _sqlite3           _ssl            
_tkinter           bz2                readline        
zlib                                            

After running make install and starting the interpreter, the zlib module cannot be imported.

I confirmed that the zlib1g-dev package is installed on my system.

I also found this similar question, which suggests adding the --with-zlib flag to the ./configure command. However, that returns an error that it is an unrecognized option and has no effect.

Answer 1

I had a similar problem on CentOS 6.3 and python 3.2.3

I solved it by:

Edit /Modules/Setup and uncomment the line:

zlib zlibmodule.c -I$(prefix)/include -L$(exec_prefix)/lib -lz

change to directory /Modules/zlib:

./configure
make
sudo make install

then compiled my python3.2 source.

and was then able to test import zlib and it all worked fine :)