Charm installation on mingw step-by-step

[Marcos Portnoi]

After storms, computer assassination threats and attempts that would break everything but the kitchen stove, here's how I successfully installed Charm Crypto on mingw running on Windows 8.1 Pro and Anaconda3 Python.

What I used:

• Anaconda Python 3.4 32 bits (the 64-bit version caused problems with mingw 32-bit version, and I did not even attempt mingw 64 bits).
• GMP 6.0.0.a. (bz2).
• OpenSSL (openssl-1.0.2a.tar.gz).
  
• PBC (pbc-0.5.14.tar.gz).
  
• Charm Crypto (Charm-Crypto-0.43_Python3.tar.gz (Python 3.x Source)).
• MinGW 32 bits (version of April 2015).
• Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bits.

What I did:

• Download and install Anaconda Python on Windows.
• Download and install mingw.
• Select several things on mingw, including msys, but do not include any GMP library. I attempted excluding OpenSSL libraries, but some of them seem necessary for gcc, which will fail at gmp compile time.
• Open mingw shell.
• Install GMP per Charm page (http://jhuisi.github.io/charm/install_source.html).
  
• Install OpenSSL per Charm page.
• Install PBC per Charm page.
• Before installing Charm, need to include libpython34.a in Anaconda Python, otherwise it will not compile. Do:
• Open Anaconda Command Shell.
• Type:  "conda install libpython"
• Alternatively, or if you do not use Anaconda Python, then build libpython34.a as such:
• Adapted from: http://www.mingw.org/wiki/FAQ
• Create file pydistutils.cfg in your home directory with the following contents.

[build]
compiler=mingw32

• Next, use pexports to export the python dll symbols. (this library is found within Anaconda3 directory). Use the following command (adjust python path as necessary):

pexports /c/Users/youruser/Anaconda3/python34.dll >python34.def

(install pexports from mingw tool if not there)

• Then, use the following command to build an import library.

dlltool -D python34.dll -d python34.def -l libpython34.a

• Move libpython34.a to /mingw/lib and to /c/Users/youruser/Anaconda3/libs. 
• Important! Remove or rename pydistutils.cfg, otherwise next steps will fail.

• Now Charm install per Charm page (configure, make, make install).
  
• Test. Run Anaconda Python from within mingw shell (>spyder); running Anaconda outside mingw shell loses some seemingly important path variables and Charm libraries will not run properly (in particular, the core/benchmark library will never be found if running python outside mingw shell).
• Done!