Install GVIM on windows with Python3 support?

Question

How do I install GVIM for Windows with Python3 support? I have installed VIM 7.4 which says in it's version file (run :version command) "+python3/dyn" and "-DDYNAMIC_PYTHON3_DLL=\"python32.dll\". So it looks like it's ready to support Python 3. When I run

:echo has("python3")

it returns zero. And if I test with

:py3 print("hello") 

it says it cannot load python32.dll.

Answer 1

Here is an approach that I used to get VIM 7.x to work with Python 3.x.

1. Install a VIM of your preference. Suggestion: get the latest version from VIM.org, though this site seems to have only 32-bit versions. If you want 64-bit (my preference) get a pre-built at https://bintray.com/veegee/generic/vim_x64 or choose your own pre-built elsewhere, or build your own.

2. Type the command :py3 print("hello")

3. It probably will not find the python dll, in which case it gives an error message like cannot load pythonXX.dll where XX is a two-digit number. In my case, VIM was looking for python35.dll, which comes from Python 3.5.1 (and probably any Python 3.5.x). The number will vary depending on the version of VIM you use.

4. Go find a matching Python distribution. Matching means that both VIM and Python must be either 32-bit or 64-bit, and the DLL that VIM wants (in step 3) is present. So for example, it appears that Python 3.5.x provides python35.dll. Install it.

   5. I don't recall having to do anything special to get VIM to find the python DLL, other than ensuring that the directory it is in should be in the path, and I think it already was. If not, add the directory with the DLL to your path.

   6. Retry step 2. It should work now.

   7. If in the future you upgrade VIM or Python, you may need to upgrade the other one at the same time, to ensure that the test in step 2 still works.

Answer 2

The problem that makes this question so hard is that specific solutions very quickly become obsolete. The day the solution is posted the version of vim or python is updated or links change. The steps provided by @mark-colon are fantastic but oriented for vim-7.

Generic instructions:

vim and python need to be in sync on many different levels:

1. Both need to be 32bit or 64bit

2. Vim needs to find a specific python dll version. It depends on who compiled your version of gvim. For example, gvim-8.1.x may use python3.6 or python3.7 and the exact version is required! Sometimes you can use: gvim --version to see what specific dll is being searched by vim at launch, otherwise you need to find out from where you downloaded gvim. This is the version of python that you must search the internet and install on your system. (Alternatively, if the version of python is more important to you than the version of vim, you can try to find a version of vim that was compiled for python but this will be harder to find.)

3. Make sure the directory that holds the python dll needs to be on the %PATH% environment variable. (Note: some just copying the python dll to the $VIM folder to get things working only works in the short term. You don't have all the necessary python libraries that are often assumed to be available.)

4. Finally, verify with ex command :python2 print("hello") or :python3 print("hello") depending on what version of python you wanted.

Specific links (if you must):

Note: these will all soon be out of date, but the following are some links to various compiled versions of gvim and python that could work together:

For gvim-8.1.x & python-3.7.x or python-2.7.x as of 2018-08:

• https://tuxproject.de/projects/vim/
• http://winpython.github.io/ or https://www.python.org/downloads

For gvim-8.1.x & python-3.6.x or python-2.7.x as of 2018-08:

• https://github.com/vim/vim-win32-installer/releases
• https://www.python.org/downloads

For gvim-7.4.x & python-3.5.x or python-2.7.x as of 2018-08:

• https://bintray.com/veegee/generic/vim_x64
• https://www.python.org/downloads