Is there a way to create / install universal2 pip packages on Darwin

What’s the problem this feature will solve?

I’m attempting to create a portable python environment for Mac. Should be a core python package similar to virtual environment, with a couple of pip packages installed in it.

The problem is on Macos, where I need the package to be portable between M1 and x86_64 Macs. The core python package is built as a universal binary. I’m not seeing a way to install a pip package (say, numpy) in a similar manner; the pip install command always installs the binaries with the singular host architecture.

Describe the solution you’d like

Some sort of CLI control allowing functionality similar to --enable-universalsdk --with-universal-archs=universal2 configuration flags when building python

Alternative Solutions

none

Additional context

none

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow the PSF Code of Conduct.

[uranusjr]

From what I understand (I’m not that familiar with M1 cross-compilation, this is just what I heard from others), yes there is a way to build universal2 on x86-64. Once you’ve built the wheel, pip can happily install the URL directly (pip install "numpy@https://....whl"). As for how universal2 can be built for a given project, you’ll need to ask Numpy maintainers; pip install merely asks the Numpy tar to build itself, and whatever the package does is opaque to pip.

[pfmoore]

Note that pip will only install wheels that have supported tags, so it’s also important that the Python installation (via the packaging library) and the wheel builder agree on what tags apply.

I don’t believe that multi-architecture wheels were common before the M1 became available, so a lot of this has probably only had limited use so far. So bugs are possible (but it’s likely that any such bugs are with other projects - in this context pip mostly just “does what it’s told to”).