This script will help you build a C extension that doesn't have any more external C extensions, for instance if you need to build Numpy you're in for a ride since you need to get Numpy's all external dependencies sorted out. Luckily, you don't have to for most common cases. Because there's manylinux which is wheels built to work on many versions of linux, if there is a manylinux version available for your python version on Lambda it'll automatically be used by the script!
Download the build-lambda-dependency script from this repository, make
sure you have Docker installed and running and then use it like below:
# Build ujson as a Python 2 and 3 wheel to use on Lambda
$ ./build-lambda-dependency 2.7 ujson==1.35
+ pip2.7 wheel ujson==1.35
Collecting ujson==1.35
Downloading ujson-1.35.tar.gz (192kB)
Building wheels for collected packages: ujson
Running setup.py bdist_wheel for ujson: started
Running setup.py bdist_wheel for ujson: finished with status 'done'
Stored in directory: /var/task
Successfully built ujson
+ mv ujson-1.35-cp27-cp27mu-linux_x86_64.whl /wheelhouse
$ ./build-lambda-dependency 3.6 ujson==1.35
+ pip3.6 wheel ujson==1.35
Collecting ujson==1.35
Downloading ujson-1.35.tar.gz (192kB)
Building wheels for collected packages: ujson
Running setup.py bdist_wheel for ujson: started
Running setup.py bdist_wheel for ujson: finished with status 'done'
Stored in directory: /var/task
Successfully built ujson
+ mv ujson-1.35-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl /wheelhouse
$ ls -1 wheelhouse/
ujson-1.35-cp27-cp27mu-linux_x86_64.whl
ujson-1.35-cp36-cp36m-linux_x86_64.whl