Bug: windows 10 `pip install eth-ape` fails building `pyethhash` error: `'alloca.h': No such file or directory`

Environment information

• ape and plugin versions:

`eth_ape-0.1.0a14-py3-none-any.whl`

• Python Version: 3.8.3
• OS: Windows 10

What went wrong?

PS> pip install eth-ape errors installing pyethhash dependency fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'alloca.h': No such file or directory

How can it be fixed?

upstream issue in pyethhash https://github.com/ConsenSys/ethjsonrpc/issues/5

[lost-theory]

Yes, I tried that -D MS_WIN64 flag and it didn’t do anything. Here’s how I was able to workaround this issue and get Ape to install on Windows

1. Clone github.com/ethereum/ethash
2. Apply this patch:

diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 18aa20f..fd01603 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ setup(
     author="Matthew Wampler-Doty",
     author_email="[e-mail]",
     license='GPL',
-    version='0.1.23',
+    version='0.1.27',
     url='https://github.com/ethereum/ethash',
     download_url='https://github.com/ethereum/ethash/tarball/v23',
     description=('Python wrappers for ethash, the ethereum proof of work'
diff --git a/src/libethash/io_win32.c b/src/libethash/io_win32.c
index 34f1aaa..30f819f 100644
--- a/src/libethash/io_win32.c
+++ b/src/libethash/io_win32.c
@@ -89,6 +89,8 @@ bool ethash_get_default_dirname(char* strbuf, size_t buffsize)
 {
 	static const char dir_suffix[] = "Ethash\\";
 	strbuf[0] = '\0';
+	return false;
+	/*
 	if (!SUCCEEDED(SHGetFolderPathA(NULL, CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA, NULL, 0, (CHAR*)strbuf))) {
 		return false;
 	}
@@ -97,4 +99,5 @@ bool ethash_get_default_dirname(char* strbuf, size_t buffsize)
 	}
 
 	return ethash_strncat(strbuf, buffsize, dir_suffix, sizeof(dir_suffix));
+	*/
 }
diff --git a/src/libethash/util_win32.c b/src/libethash/util_win32.c
index 268e6db..59693b9 100644
--- a/src/libethash/util_win32.c
+++ b/src/libethash/util_win32.c
@@ -35,4 +35,4 @@ void debugf(char const* str, ...)
 	_vsnprintf_s(buf, sizeof(buf), sizeof(buf), str, args);
 	buf[sizeof(buf)-1] = '\0';
 	OutputDebugStringA(buf);
-}
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/src/python/core.c b/src/python/core.c
index c66e03c..e89d40c 100644
--- a/src/python/core.c
+++ b/src/python/core.c
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #include <Python.h>
-#include <alloca.h>
+#include <malloc.h>
 #include <stdint.h>
 #include <stdlib.h>
 #include <time.h>
diff --git a/test/c/test.cpp b/test/c/test.cpp
index 44e0c38..de5d3aa 100644
--- a/test/c/test.cpp
+++ b/test/c/test.cpp
@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE(test_ethash_get_default_dirname) {
 	// TODO: Improve this test ...
 #ifdef _WIN32
 	char homedir[256];
-	BOOST_REQUIRE(SUCCEEDED(SHGetFolderPathA(NULL, CSIDL_PROFILE, NULL, 0, (CHAR*)homedir)));
+	//BOOST_REQUIRE(SUCCEEDED(SHGetFolderPathA(NULL, CSIDL_PROFILE, NULL, 0, (CHAR*)homedir)));
 	BOOST_REQUIRE(ethash_get_default_dirname(result, 256));
 	std::string res = std::string(homedir) + std::string("\\AppData\\Local\\Ethash\\");
 #else

1. Create a venv and run python setup.py install for ethash in the venv.
2. Now you can do pip install eth-ape or pip install -e .[dev] in the ape repo and it’ll use the already installed version of pyethash when installing all the dependencies (it’s actually py-evm which requires pyethash>=0.1.27,<1.0.0).

Note that the patch in step 2 may be removing some important code. It’s not a real fix, just a workaround I came up with to see if the package would build.

[NotPeopling2day]

No CI support yet this ticket blocked lost-theory in https://github.com/ApeWorX/ape-hardhat/pull/2