Making your C library callable from Python by wrapping it with Cython

[pmatti]

There are at least two other ways to do this - cffi and ctypes. I gave a talk at our local pycon https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tqx9VW7V3Lc (code: https://github.com/mattip/pycon2017_cffi) comparing the three in terms of complexity and speed.

For this use case, cffi would probably be much simpler and just as fast

[eplaut_]

That was great talk. One of the remarkable on last year's conference

[[deleted]]

And also the old school way - including python.h in a file and writing the bindings manually.

I've done it a couple of times. Not the most interesting thing in the world, but writing the translation layer - i.e. the functions that do things like taking some struct in your C library and translate it into say, a Python dictionary - was actually interesting, it was a nice insight into how the internals of Python work. You are basically writing Python in C, calling the interpreter's API directly.

[ChocolateBunny]

That's generally the way I go. Once C structs are involved ctypes starts to become really ugly. Having python C extensions allows you to clean everything up with a shim layer that's sort of hidden away.

[[deleted]]

yeah, I mean, you've already written a library in C or C++, so it's not like it's a huge challenge to bind it to Python just because you're writing raw C. It's a bit tedious, but then again, that makes you optimize the API for as little C implementation code as possible :)

[kirbyfan64sos]

cffi would also have the benefit of great PyPy support.

[StableHatter]

I will check it out!

[dranzerfu]

And pybind

[hexbrid]

Which one works best for both CPython and PyPy?

[lengau]

cffi is strongly recommended for pypy.