Using build config settings

Build config settings can be used to customize some aspects of the build. See the Build config settings reference for a list of the settings implemented by meson-python.

How build config settings are specified depends on the Python package build front-end used. The most popular build front-end are build and pip. These use the --config-settings long command line option or the -C short command line option:

pypa/buid

$ python -m build \
    -Csetup-args="-Doption=true" \
    -Csetup-args="-Dvalue=1" \
    -Ccompile-args="-j6"

pip

$ python -m pip wheel . \
    --config-settings=setup-args="-Doption=disable" \
    --config-settings=compile-args="-j6"

Refer to the build and pip documentation for details. This example uses the python -m pip wheel command to build a Python wheel that can be later installed or distributed. To build a package and immediately install it, replace wheel with install. See the Passing arguments to Meson guide for more examples.

Passing multiple settings

Please note that pip prior to 23.1 did not offer a way to set a build config setting to a list of strings: later values for the same key passed to --config-settings override earlier ones, effectively limiting the number of options that can be passed to each command invoked in the build process to one. This limitation has been lifted in pip release 23.1.