Best way to embed Python in a C++ app?

[David Abrahams]

Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> writes:

> I'm toying with the idea of embedding Python in an existing C++ 
> application.  As far as I can tell, there are three possible paths I 
> could take.  There's the raw API, there's SWIG, and there's boost.python.
>
> I've played with the first two a little over the years, but don't really 
> know anything about boost beyond what little I've learned from reading 
> the boost web site.  It looks like I'm going to need to pass objects 
> back and forth from C++ to Python, and (at least on the surface) boost 
> looks like it can handle a lot of the messy details of this.  On the 
> other hand, I'm a little worried that it's still a bit of a work in 
> progress. 

Except in that we keep slowly adding improvments, it's not a work in
progress.  I don't think it's any different from SWIG in that respect.

> Anybody with experience in all three willing to offer a comparitive 
> evaluation?

I would suggest that you avoid the raw API if you can.  There are so
many details that are easy to get wrong that a high-level wrapping
tool is almost always a better choice.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com