This page provides important information for users of the Ice for Python distribution.

On this page:

Overview of the Ice for Python Distribution

Ice for Python is available as a collection of Python packages on the Python Package Index. Each package provides the following:

• Ice extension for Python
• Slice files for all Ice components (Glacier2, Ice, IceGrid etc.)
• Slice-to-Python compiler (slice2py)

Installing the Ice for Python Distribution

Install Ice for Python using the pip source distribution. The following command will build and install the source package.:

pip install zeroc-ice

On Linux this command will build and install the source package. On macOS and Windows it installs a pre-built wheel for the following configurations:

• Python 2.7 on macOS (64 bit) and Windows (32 bit and 64 bit) 
• Python 3.6 on Windows (32 bit and 64 bit)

Using Ice for Python

The installation process automatically adds the Ice modules to Python's package directory and adds the Slice-to-Python compiler (slice2py) to a directory that's likely already in your executable search path. To verify that Ice is installed, execute these commands:

python
>>> import Ice
>>> Ice.getSliceDir()

The output of getSliceDir shows where the Slice files have been installed.

The Ice manual provides a complete description of the Python mapping, including the options for generating Python code from Slice definitions.

Using the Sample Programs

Sample programs are provided in a separate GitHub repository. You can browse this repository to see build and usage instructions for all supported programming languages. Simply clone this repository:

git clone -b 3.7 https://github.com/zeroc-ice/ice-demos.git
cd ice-demos