# Building a custom waf binary
Waf is primarily intended to be distributed with the project using it. The Arch
Linux package makes waf usable directly, but also brings all files necessary to
compose a custom binary for your project. To do so, create a temporary
directory, link all the resources together and build it.
cd $(mktemp -d)
ln -s /usr/share/waf/wscript .
ln -s /usr/bin/waf waf-light
ln -s /usr/lib/python3.7/waf/waflib .
mkdir zip
waf configure build --make-waf --tools=''
The last line allows you to choose tools to include.
After this process, there should be a `waf` binary ready in the current working
directory.
## Building an older version for current Python
Especially after version 2 introduced API-breaking changes, some projects may
have become incompatible and require older waf versions to build. Fortunately,
they mostly stay available online and can be retrieved directly in binary form
with a command like
wget -O waf http://ftp.waf.io/pub/release/waf-1.2.3
chmod 755 waf
Unfortunately, a change in language library makes these impossible to run on
Python version 3.7 or up. However, by applying the necessary change that made
waf 2.0.7 compatible to newer Python versions, a compatible binary can still be
built. The patch should apply even on older versions. This can be achieved
through a build process similar to the one described above, extended with the
download of an older waf version and patch.
wget 'https://waf.io/waf-1.8.22.tar.bz2'
wget 'https://gitlab.com/ita1024/waf/commit/facdc0b173d933073832c768ec1917c553cb369c.patch'
tar xjf waf-*.tar.bz2
rm waf-*.tar.bz2
cd waf-*
patch -p1 -i ../*.patch
./waf-light configure build --make-waf --tools=''