Installation fails on Windows: Missing stddef.h while building fairseq C++ extension (libbleu.cpp)

[pxD1311]

Hello team,

I'm working on a speaker profiling project that depends on fairseq. However, I’m consistently facing build failures related to libbleu.cpp and a missing standard header file (stddef.h) during compilation on Windows.

Steps I Have Tried:

Python Versions: Tested with Python 3.8.10, 3.11.x, and 3.12.x

Environments: Used both conda (conda create -n speakerpesq python=3.8.10) and virtualenv (python -m venv speaker38)

Compiler: Installed Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (MSVC version 14.44.35207) with all C++ components

Install Methods: Tried pip install fairseq, pip install -r requirements.txt, and also pip install git+https://github.com/pytorch/fairseq.git@f2146bdc7abf293186de9449bfa2272775e39e1d

Dependencies: pip, setuptools, and wheel are all updated in every env

Full Error Log (build output):

creating build\temp.win32-cpython-38\Release\fairseq\clib\libbleu "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\HostX86\x86\cl.exe" /c /nologo /O2 /W3 /GL /DNDEBUG /MD -IC:\Users\frost.conda\envs\speakerpesq\include -IC:\Users\frost.conda\envs\speakerpesq\Include "-IC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include" "-IC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\ATLMFC\include" "-IC:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include" /EHsc /Tpfairseq/clib/libbleu/libbleu.cpp /Fobuild\temp.win32-cpython-38\Release\fairseq/clib/libbleu/libbleu.obj -std=c++11 -O3 cl : Command line warning D9002 : ignoring unknown option '-std=c++11' cl : Command line warning D9002 : ignoring unknown option '-O3' libbleu.cpp C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include\cstddef(11): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'stddef.h': No such file or directory C:\Users\frost\AppData\Local\Temp\pip-build-env-a4l_owy8\overlay\Lib\site-packages\setuptools_distutils\dist.py:261: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'test_suite' warnings.warn(msg) error: command 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\HostX86\x86\cl.exe' failed with exit code 2 [end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip. ERROR: Failed building wheel for fairseq Failed to build fairseq ERROR: Could not build wheels for fairseq, which is required to install pyproject.toml-based projects

Error Summary (for quick glance):

pgsql Copy Edit cl : Command line warning D9002 : ignoring unknown option '-std=c++11' cl : Command line warning D9002 : ignoring unknown option '-O3' libbleu.cpp C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include\cstddef(11): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'stddef.h': No such file or directory error: command 'cl.exe' failed with exit code 2 Same error occurs in all environments, whether conda or venv.

System Info:

OS: Windows 11 (64-bit)

Python: 3.8.10 (tested 3.11 and 3.12 too)

Conda: Yes (conda-forge channel used)

venv: Yes

Compiler: Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools (MSVC 14.44)

pip: 24.0 and 23.x tested

Would appreciate any help, clarification, or workaround. Thanks!