Visual Studio Code "python.h: No such file or directory" windows gcc

Question

I 'm a total beginner in C++ and getting crazy trying to embed Python in C++ using VS Code IDE and GCC compiler. I am stock and now I 'm keep facing this silly error that says:

python.h: No such file or directory gcc

I have followed steps explaned in "Using GCC with MinGW in VS Code" in order to configure C++ in VS Code but I failed to install MinGW (The bin folder was empty) so I add already installed CodeBlocks MinGW to my path and it seems to work.

I have python 3.8 installed and tried other solutions and already put Python.h and python library path in project include path.

"C:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/include/" and "C:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/libs/"

here is the code that I want to compile:

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <conio.h>
    #include <python.h>

    int main()
{
    PyObject* pInt;

    Py_Initialize();

    PyRun_SimpleString("print('Hello World from Embedded Python!!!')");
    
    Py_Finalize();

    printf("\nPress any key to exit...\n");
    if(!_getch()) _getch();
    return 0;
}

and this is my c_cpp_properties.json. (C++ configuration file):

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Win32",
            "includePath": [
                "${workspaceFolder}/**",
                "C:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/include/**",
                "C:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/libs/**"
            ],
            "defines": [
                "_DEBUG",
                "UNICODE",
                "_UNICODE"
            ],
            "windowsSdkVersion": "10.0.18362.0",
            "compilerPath": "C:/Program Files (x86)/CodeBlocks/MinGW/bin/gcc.exe",
            "cStandard": "c17",
            "cppStandard": "c++17",
            "intelliSenseMode": "windows-gcc-x86"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}

and this is tasks.json file:

{
"version": "2.0.0",
"tasks": [
    {
        "type": "cppbuild",
        "label": "C/C++: gcc.exe build active file",
        "command": "C:/Program Files (x86)/CodeBlocks/MinGW/bin/gcc.exe",
        "args": [
            "-g",
            "${file}",
            "-o",
            "${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe"
        ],
        "options": {
            "cwd": "C:/Program Files (x86)/CodeBlocks/MinGW/bin"
        },
        "problemMatcher": [
            "$gcc"
        ],
        "group": {
            "kind": "build",
            "isDefault": true
        },
        "detail": "compiler: \"C:/Program Files (x86)/CodeBlocks/MinGW/bin/gcc.exe\""
    }
]

}

How are you building the code? c_cpp_properties.json only configures the intellisense — Alan Birtles
– Alan Birtles, Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 7:22
You need to modify tasks.json to tell the compiler itself how to build, and what flags, options and arguments should be used for the compiler. — Some programmer dude
– Some programmer dude, Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 7:23
I suggest you find some documentation or tutorial about the -I, -L and -l options. You don't use them correctly. — Some programmer dude
– Some programmer dude, Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 7:53
Not to be discouraging, but "total beginner in C++" and "trying to embed Python" is not an ideal combination. Embedding Python is more at the "intermediate to advanced" level. — molbdnilo
– molbdnilo, Commented Dec 13, 2021 at 8:52

MohsenZ · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-18 18:41:20Z

5

The problem was a combinations of simple mistakes and as a beginner I solved it by some digging in gcc -l -L option flags for library link example and gcc arguments docs.

There are several simple and important points that should be observed:

1. The order of options is really important. If its wrong, compiler wont work. It should be like -I(capital i),-g,-L,-l(lower case L),-o.

2. To embed python in C++ firstly the path to python include files have to be known to compiler by -I option. Then the path to python libraries by a -L option. Then name of the each required python .lib file contained in libs folder of python.

Here is an example of it:

            "-IC:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/include",=>(path to python include files) 
            "-g",=>(debug option specified by ide)
            "${file}",
            "-LC:/Users/MPC/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python38-32/libs",=>(path to python libraries)
            "-lpython38",=>(python lib contained in python libs)
            "-lpython3",=>(python lib contained in python libs)
            "-l_tkinter",=>(python lib contained in python libs)
            "-o",=>(output argument specified by ide)
            "${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe"

I hope that with this answer, the beginners like me, get to the conclusion faster. There is also a good youtube tutorial of Embedding python in C++ with CMake and Pybind11 and VS Code

answered Dec 18, 2021 at 18:41

MohsenZ

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1 Comment

Sumeet Singh Over a year ago

For future readers if your code is compiling fine, however you are still getting underline errors on vscode for windows using g++/mingw or similar you may also need to update the c_cpp_properties.json file by adding the Include path to Intellisense. do the below "name": "Win32", "includePath": [ "${workspaceFolder}/**", "C:/msys64/mingw64/include/python3.10"

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