Description
Proposed new feature or change:
This is an issue to discuss the future of the npymath library in Numpy.
Numpy ships with a static library in core/lib named npymath.lib (Windows) or libnpymath.a (Unices).
It provides a suitable platform-specific implementation of various math routines.
Scipy links to npymath during its build process, in various places.
We (Scipy) have run into problems linking against Npymath, because of the combination of Numpy's use of the latest Visual Studio toolchain, and Scipy's use of the Mingw-w64 toolchain - discussed in MacPython/numpy-wheels#145 .
The issue that arises is that it is in general more difficult to link static libraries across toolchains, than it is to link against dynamic libraries (e.g. DLLs) or to recompile the sources. This issue is to discuss whether we should think of other solutions. Possible options are:
- Leave things as they are.
- Ship the C header and sources for Npymath, so external libraries and packages can recompile them.
- Create a dynamic library from Npymath, and ship that, for linkage against external libraries.
- Your option here.
This issue is to house the discussion of different options.