Linking C++ Application with python3.dll instead of python3xy.dll

[Lucrecious]

Hi, I'm trying to create an application that has a low-friction building process.

I want to embed a python interpreter, and right now I'm on python 3.1.2, however, I want to link against python3.dll so that users only need a version of python3 and not the exact same build.

However, when I try to link against python3, I get a bunch of unresolved symbols:

undefined symbol: __declspec(dllimport) _PyThreadState_UncheckedGet
undefined symbol: __declspec(dllimport) PyGILState_Check
undefined symbol: __declspec(dllimport) _PyObject_GetDictPtr
...
...

There's about ~20 of them.

How can I properly link again python3 and not a specific version?

Here's my build command:

g++ -o test.exe hello.cpp -Ipybind11\include -IC:\path\to\Python312\Include -LC:\path\to\Python312 -LC:\path\to\Python312\libs -lpython3

If I simply link against python312 instead of python3 then everything is fine.

I don't want to embed the interpreter because I want to keep my build as small as possible, and the python package immediately adds 23mb (which isn't bad at all, but if I can avoid that, I'd like to). Moreover, packaging python with the application seems like a messy solution. You basically need to put the executable in the same folder as the python package - the package cannot be its own subdirectory within the build folder (if anyone has a solution to this, I'd love to hear it).

Thanks