This package contains Python bindings for ØMQ. ØMQ is a lightweight and fast messaging implementation.

Current release of pyzmq is 2.1.7, and targets libzmq-2.1.7. For libzmq 2.0.x, use pyzmq release 2.0.10.1 or the 2.0.x development branch.

PyZMQ versioning follows libzmq versioning. In general, your pyzmq version should be the same as that of your libzmq, but due to the generally growing API of libzmq, your pyzmq should not be newer than your libzmq. This is a strict restriction for pyzmq <= 2.1.0, but we intend to support libzmq >= 2.1.4 (the first 'stable' 2.1 release) for pyzmq 2.1.x.

As of 2.1.7, we have experimental support for the 3.0 API of libzmq, developed at https://github.com/zeromq/libzmq. No code to change, no flags to pass, just build against libzmq 3 and it should work. The pyzmq API has not changed.

See PyZMQ's Sphinx generated documentation on GitHub for API details, and some notes on Python and Cython development.

Unless you specifically want to develop PyZMQ, we recommend downloading the PyZMQ source code from our github download page here:

https://github.com/zeromq/pyzmq/downloads

While you can also get the latest source code by forking our github repository, building from the repository will require that you download and install Cython version 0.13 or later.

We have binary installers for various Pythons on OSX and Windows, so you should be able to just easy_install pyzmq in many situations. These eggs include libzmq-2.1.7, so they should be the only thing you need to start using pyzmq, but we simply don't have the experience to know when and where these installers will not work.

If a binary installer fails for you, please tell us about your system and the failure, so that we can try to fix it in later releases, and fall back on building from source.

Eggs are on PyPI, and we have them for 'current' Pythons, which are for OSX 10.6:

• Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.2 (32b and 64b intel)

and Windows (x86 and x64):

• Python 2.7, 3.2

We also have MSI installer packages in our downloads section on GitHub.

A Python 2.6/win64 MSI for 2.1.7 was provided by Craig Austin (craig DOT austin AT gmail DOT com)

Our build scripts are much improved as of 2.1.4, so if you would like to contribute better Windows installers, or have any improvements on existing releases, they would be much appreciated. Simply python setup.py bdist_msi or python setupegg.py bdist_egg should work, once you have a libzmq and Python. We simply don't have the VMs or time in which to cover all the bases ourselves. Sometimes libzmq.so/dll/dylib doesn't get included unless build is specified also, e.g. python setupegg.py build bdist_egg, but this doesn't always seem to be true.

To build and install pyzmq from source, you will first need to build libzmq. After you have done this, follow these steps:

Tell pyzmq where libzmq is via the configure subcommand:

$ python setup.py configure --zmq=/path/to/zeromq2

or the zmq install directory on OSX/Linux:

$ python setup.py configure --zmq=/usr/local

The argument should be a directory containing a lib and a include directory, containing libzmq and zmq.h respectively. For instance (on Windows), if you have downloaded pyzmq and current libzmq into the same parent directory, this would be:

$ python setup.py configure --zmq=../zeromq-2.1.8

Second, run this command:

$ python setup.py install

Cython is not required to build pyzmq from a release package, but it is required if you want to develop pyzmq, or build directly from our repository on GitHub.

On Windows, libzmq.dll will be copied into the zmq directory, and installed along with pyzmq, so you shouldn't need to edit your PATH.

It is best to compile both ØMQ and PyØMQ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. You should not need to use mingw. If you build libzmq with MSVS 2010, then there will be issues in error handling, because there will be a mismatch between error numbers.

Current testing indicates that running

$ python setup.py bdist_msi

successfully builds a working MSI installer, but we don't have enough Windows deployment experience to know where that may fail.

64b Windows builds have been successful (as of 2.1.7.1), using VC++ 2008 express, and the Windows 7 SDK. VS2008 had to be patched as described here, and pyzmq was built following these instructions on the Cython wiki.

If you install libzmq to a location other than the default (/usr/local) on Linux, you may need to do one of the following:

• Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to the lib directory of ØMQ.

• Build the extension using the --rpath flag:

  $ python setup.py build_ext --rpath=/opt/zeromq-dev/lib --inplace

The easiest way to install libzmq on OSX is with the wonderful homebrew package manager, via:

$ brew install zeromq

And to build a 32+64b intel fat binary, add --universal:

$ brew install zeromq --universal

This will install libzmq in /usr/local, making pyzmq installable with pip, which doesn't support our binary eggs.

To develop PyZMQ, you will need to install Cython, version 0.13 or greater. After installing Cython, instead of doing python setup.py install do:

$ python setup.py build_ext --inplace
$ python setupegg.py develop

This will build the C extension inplace and then put this directory on your sys.path. With this configuration you only have to run:

$ python setup.py build_ext --inplace

each time you change the .pyx files. To clean the sources, you can do:

$ python setup.py clean

To run the test suite after installing, just do:

$ python setup.py test

Currently, we are using the following steps to release PyZMQ:

• Check the version number in version.pyx.
• Remove old MANIFEST and egg-info files and dist and build directories.
• Check MANIFEST.in.

• Register the release with pypi:

  python setup.py register

• Build source distributions and upload:

  python setup.py sdist --formats=zip,gztar upload

• Branch the release (do not push the branch):

  git checkout -b 2.1.8 master

• commit the changed version.pyx to the branch:

  git add zmq/core/version.pyx && git commit -m "bump version to 2.1.8"

• Tag the release:

  git tag -a -m "Tagging release 2.1.8" v2.1.8
  git push origin --tags

• Make sure the README.rst has an updated list of contributors.
• Announce on list.

This project was started and continues to be led by Brian E. Granger (ellisonbg AT gmail DOT com). Min Ragan-Kelley (benjaminrk AT gmail DOT com) is the primary developer of pyzmq at this time.

The following people have contributed to the project:

• Carlos Rocha (carlos DOT rocha AT gmail DOT com)
• Andrew Gwozdziewycz (git AT apgwoz DOT com)
• Fernando Perez (fernando DOT perez AT berkeley DOT edu)
• Nicholas Piel (nicholas AT nichol DOT as)
• Eugene Chernyshov (chernyshov DOT eugene AT gmail DOT com)
• Justin Riley (justin DOT t DOT riley AT gmail DOT com)
• Ivo Danihelka (ivo AT denihelka DOT net)
• Thomas Supra (tomspur AT fedoraproject DOT org)
• Douglas Creager (dcreager AT dcreager DOT net)
• Erick Tryzelaar (erick DOT tryzelaar AT gmail DOT com)
• Min Ragan-Kelley (benjaminrk AT gmail DOT com)
• Scott Sadler (github AT mashi DOT org)
• spez (steve AT hipmunk DOT com)
• Thomas Kluyver (takowl AT gmail DOT com)
• Baptiste Lepilleur (baptiste DOT lepilleur AT gmail DOT com)
• Daniel Truemper (truemped AT googlemail DOT com)
• Erik Tollerud <erik DOT tollerud AT gmail DOT com>