Python universal fat binary >= 1.17.1?

[walt-jones]

We're trying to compile a universal2 executable and have been unable to find/install a fat binary for cffi. arch -x86_64 -arm64 pip3 install cffi still gives us separate architectures so files and Pyinstaller builds fail with a IncompatibleBinaryArchError error on /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/lib/python3.12/site-packages/_cffi_backend.cpython-312-darwin.so. Any way to get a fat binary of cffi for MacOS?

[mattip]

There is some discussion of the pros and cons of universal2 wheels for extension modules here. CFFI itself comes only in either arm64 or x86_64 variants, there is no universal2 wheel. You can use arch -x86_64 python -m pip to force a x86_64 installation on a universal2 python, then be sure to use that formula for subsequent invocations.

For building your software, I think the recommended way to do this, if you really want, is to us cibuildwheel (for a python extension module) or lipo for executables.

[walt-jones]

Thanks Matti. We were able to use lipo to combine architectures into a single .so and that satisfied Pyinstaller's requirements for fat binary.