using a C extension in python, without installing it as a module

Question

I am writing C extensions for python. I am just experimenting for the time being and I have written a hello world extension that looks like this :

#include <Python2.7/Python.h>

static PyObject* helloworld(PyObject* self)
{
    return Py_BuildValue("s", "Hello, Python extensions!!");
}

static char helloworld_docs[] = "helloworld( ): Any message you want to put here!!\n";

static PyMethodDef helloworld_funcs[] = {
    {"helloworld", (PyCFunction)helloworld, METH_NOARGS, helloworld_docs},
    {NULL,NULL,0,NULL}
};

void inithelloworld(void)
{
    Py_InitModule3("helloworld", helloworld_funcs,"Extension module example!");
}

the code works perfectly fine, after installing it from a setup.py file I wrote, and installing it from command line

python setup.py install

What I want is the following :

I want to use the C file as a python extension module, without installing it, that is I want to use it as just another python file in my project, and not a file that I need to install before my python modules get to use its functionality. Is there some way of doing this ?

Answer 1

You can simply compile the extension without installing (usually something like python setup.py build). Then you have to make sure the interpreter can find the compiled module (for example by copying it next to a script that imports it, or setting PYTHONPATH).