[C++-sig] Boost.Python at runtime
David Abrahams
dave at boost-consulting.com
Thu Aug 18 01:07:13 CEST 2005
Allen Bierbaum <allenb at vrsource.org> writes:
> David Abrahams wrote:
>
>>Allen Bierbaum <allenb at vrsource.org> writes:
>>
> Is this an area that anyone else has ever asked about or have you ever
> toyed with the idea of having run-time capabilities?
We have about as many run-time capabilities as are possible in
Boost.Python.
>>and what you're asking isn't possible to do in portable C++ without
>>knowing all of the classes and member function signatures that you
>>might want to wrap at compile-time anyway.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I could be wrong, but I think I will have all this anyway (or be able to
> get it) through a reflective interface in the library. Basically each
> run-time class
Too late. The information is needed at compile-time, as I said.
> can return a type descriptor object that can return as
> much information as necessary. I don't pretend to know C++ as well as
> you though, so maybe I am missing something. Is there some information
> or knowledge that would be needed that could not be stored and then
> looked up later at run-time when registering a wrapper?
It doesn't matter if it can be looked up at run-time, because it needs
to be available at compile-time.
>>However, see
>>http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/cpp-sig/2781474
>>
>>
> I may be missing something here. I see how this is related, but I
> think what I want to do is quite different.
Yes, what you want to do includes generating function call wrappers.
> I effectively want to do exactly what I could do at compile time
> with the current code but instead delay the creation so I do it on
> demand
I understand that.
>>You can of course generate Boost.Python wrapping code dynamically and
>>compile it into extension modules that are then loaded into your
>>running Python program :)
>>
> That would be fun but I think my users would wonder a little why the CPU
> and disk are churning so much at startup. :)
You would cache the results, so you only have to pay once. There's a
successful system that does it that way: it allows you to embed C++
code directly in your Python and have it compiled on the fly, so I
know some people can tolerate it. Of course, if you're going to
generate code anyway I'd probably generate traditional Python/C API
code rather than Boost.Python stuff, since it will compile faster.
--
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com
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