1# Building and installing Python bindings 2 3Python bindings are available as wheels on [PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/google-benchmark/) for importing and 4using Google Benchmark directly in Python. 5Currently, pre-built wheels exist for macOS (both ARM64 and Intel x86), Linux x86-64 and 64-bit Windows. 6Supported Python versions are Python 3.8 - 3.12. 7 8To install Google Benchmark's Python bindings, run: 9 10```bash 11python -m pip install --upgrade pip # for manylinux2014 support 12python -m pip install google-benchmark 13``` 14 15In order to keep your system Python interpreter clean, it is advisable to run these commands in a virtual 16environment. See the [official Python documentation](https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html) 17on how to create virtual environments. 18 19To build a wheel directly from source, you can follow these steps: 20```bash 21git clone https://github.com/google/benchmark.git 22cd benchmark 23# create a virtual environment and activate it 24python3 -m venv venv --system-site-packages 25source venv/bin/activate # .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1 on Windows 26 27# upgrade Python's system-wide packages 28python -m pip install --upgrade pip build 29# builds the wheel and stores it in the directory "dist". 30python -m build 31``` 32 33NB: Building wheels from source requires Bazel. For platform-specific instructions on how to install Bazel, 34refer to the [Bazel installation docs](https://bazel.build/install). 35