Python C interoperability

Question

I wish to wrap an existing C (pure C that is. No C++) library into Python so that I can call it from Python scripts. Which approach among the various available (C Api, SWIG etc.) would be the most suitable?

Answer 1

SWIG is great for doing this. Here is a sample tutorial: http://www.swig.org/Doc1.3/Python.html.

Answer 2

Cython is probably the easiest.

Answer 3

go with Ctypes, it is part of standard distribution and works very well. basically you can wrap C structures and types in python classes, as well as functions. Some types and functionality is already provided by library.

ctypes

couple caveats though: passing triple pointers to C routines is not obvious (if you have to), and I could not get it to work with static libraries on Linux, DLL and shared objects are fine.

Answer 4

Since your code is "pure" C you might consider using Pyrex/Cython. This is not a voting issue and Cython has already been mentioned. I am just clarifying why it is a better choice for pure C.