On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:52 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn
<[email protected]> wrote:
> On 11/30/2010 07:28 PM, Robert Bradshaw wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:12 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn
>> <[email protected]>  wrote:
>>
>>> On 11/30/2010 06:35 AM, Robert Bradshaw wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:20 PM, Vitja Makarov<[email protected]>    
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> 2010/11/30 Robert Bradshaw<[email protected]>:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Greg Ewing
>>>>>> <[email protected]>    wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> * it makes the inner C function directly callable, thus making it 
>>>>>>>> easier to
>>>>>>>> implement things like cpdef functions and generators on top.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you mention the name of such a function without calling it,
>>>>>>> does it refer to the C function or the Python function?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> That would depend on the context in which it's being used.
>>>>>> Essentially, the as_variable attribute would be set, allowing it to
>>>>>> coerce to a Python object if need be.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> I see problem with closures here where should scope object be created
>>>>> in C function or in wrapper?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> The only handle you can get of a closure object is a Python one.
>>>> (Well, eventually we want to have cdef closures, but we're not there
>>>> yet, and wouldn't be compatible with cdef functions--we'd probably
>>>> expose them as structs with a state and function pointer attributes.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Just for reference: Carl recently made me aware that ctypes contain some
>>> code to proxy Python functions to C function pointers. And apparently it
>>> contains a small compiler that creates new CPU code on demand for this.
>>> I'm not sure how well that would be exposed for our purposes, if it has
>>> a C API or not. (I haven't really looked at this myself.)
>>>
>>> Being able to create a closure in Cython and pass it as an ordinary C
>>> function callback, without having to manage the context manually, would
>>> be a really cool feature! And with such a mini-compiler it is possible.
>>>
>>> (Same idea applies to a concept of "pointer to bound cdef method")
>>>
>> Wow, that's a pretty interesting idea. Does this limit the
>> applicability to certain architectures? Of course even if the context
>> needs to be handled separately, we could make it easier than it is
>> now.
>>
>
> Spending five more minutes on this, ctypes uses the libffi library
> (which is simply bundled with Python, although I haven't probed into
> whether this means it will always be available in a form we can link
> with). It appears to be very user-friendly, and has specific routines
> for creating C closures.
>
> Google it to see platform availability. Apparently closures are not
> available on every platform, but a grep through the source for
> FFI_CLOSURES seem to indicated that the "moxie", "m32r" and "m68k"
> platforms are the only ones without closure support. I can live with
> that :-) Looks to me like libffi lies at the core of a lot of FFI out
> there so that support is rather good.

Very cool. I'm completely fine with relying on this library (bundled
with Python) for our use. The only downside is that documentation
seems a bit sparse, but I'm sure we can figure it out.

> At any rate, it seems tempting to just make Cython cdef closures simply
> be libffi closures.

Yep. This would give a nice way to get bound cdef methods as well
(though I could see value in being able to go back to the unbound
version, not sure how easy that would be).

- Robert
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