Re: Question: "load"ing a shared object in python

[Mark Rowe]

On Jan 28, 2005, at 6:48 AM, Rick L. Ratzel wrote:
Pro Grammer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Hello, all,
I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but could you kindly  
tell me
how to "load" a shared object (like libx.so) into python, so that the  
methods in
the .so can be used? That too, given that the shared object was  
written in c++,
compiled with g++ ?
Thanks,
Pro Grammer
   Will the dl standard library module help you?  From the Python docs  
at:

http://docs.python.org/lib/module-dl.html
As Simon Brunning notes, ctypes  
(<http://starship.python.net/crew/theller/ctypes/>) is a robust  
alternative to the `dl' module.

Example:
import dl, time
a=dl.open('/lib/libc.so.6')
a.call('time'), time.time()
(929723914, 929723914.498)
A note about this example: the `dl' call returns an integer as that is  
what the C time function returns.  time.time() in Python is implemented  
in terms of C's gettimeofday, ftime or time depending on the platform.

I'm guessing that there might be some C++ issues, but maybe it's worth
looking into.
As far as I am aware, neither dl nor ctypes natively support C++.  This  
is a tricky matter, due to the lack of standards for C++ ABI's covering  
name mangling and vtable layout etc.  See the thread starting at  
<http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2004-November/ 
249513.html> for more information.

Regards,
Mark Rowe
<http://bdash.net.nz/>
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list