[Swig-user] How to receive a FILE* from Python under MinGW?

[Carl Douglas]

Hi John,

In my case, all I needed was a PyFile_AsFile to get the File *.
However I found that Python errors going to stdout/stderr were not
being redirected properly when my code was linking to a different
version of the CRT than the build of Python I was using.

In the end, I came up with one of two solutions, and I really don't
like recommending either:

1) Rebuild Python with a different compiler/linker kit so it links to
the same CRT as my project, in your case find a mingw built Python.dll

2) Rebuild my project so it links to the same CRT as the Python.dll,
have you got 3 hours to spare, then read on...

Python2.5 out of the msi links against msvcrt71.dll, and I found the
free VS2003 toolkit compiler which produces binaries that link against
this CRT (microsoft no longer provide this because its been superceded
by the VS2005 express editions) archived here:

http://xona.com/2004/06/29.html

Also you will need to download .Net 1.1 (~120mb) to get msvcrt71.lib

More complete details about setting up the free VS2003 command line
compiler are here...

http://root.cern.ch/root/Procedure/Procedure%20to%20install%20the%20free%20Microsoft%20Visual%20C.htm


On 3/21/07, John Pye <john.pye at student.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> Hi Carl
>
> I'm not sure that your snippet really solves my problem. As far as I can
> see from, you're just passing a filename instead of a file pointer,
> right? And then you're using the Python fopen-equivalent
> (PyFile_FromString) This is not an option for me, as I want to pass the
> FILE* from Python and all the way into into a existing shared-library
> code. I can't change the latter; it must work ok with standard fprintf
> (etc) functions.
>
> If I've missed something, perhaps you could clarify a little bit more on
> how it is that you're overcoming the FILE* problem?
>
> Cheers
> JP
>
> See also
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/7b69b34240169f7e/ac8fae1b61832f51?lnk=st&q=file+mingw+python&rnum=30#ac8fae1b61832f51
>
> And
> http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2007-March/430695.html
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/6d7569e7fd996daf/
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/browse_frm/thread/17558adbc053f26d/
>
> Carl Douglas wrote:
> > Hi John,
> >
> > I had exactly this problem... use the PyFile_AsFile function.  Below
> > is a code snippet from my project:
> >
> >         // Thank you:  http://www.ragestorm.net/tutorial?id=21#8
> >         PyObject* PyFileObject = PyFile_FromString(ofn.lpstrFile, "r");
> >
> >         if (PyFileObject == NULL)
> >         {
> >             PyErr_Print();
> >             PyErr_Clear();
> >             return false;
> >         }
> >
> >         // Because microsoft C runtimes are not binary compatible, we
> > can't
> >         // just call fopen to get a FILE * and pass that FILE * to
> > another application
> >         // or library (Python25.dll in this case) that uses a
> > different version
> >         // of the C runtime that this DLL uses. Using PyFile_AsFile is a
> > work-around...
> >
> >         if (PyRun_SimpleFile(PyFile_AsFile(PyFileObject),
> > ofn.lpstrFile) == -1)
> >         {
> >             PyErr_Print();
> >             PyErr_Clear();
> >         }
> >
> >         Py_DECREF(PyFileObject);
> >
> > For the full source of my SWIG/Python project, poke around here:
> >
> > http://l3dtpython.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/cdPython/
> >
> > Hope that helps.
> >
> > On 3/21/07, John Pye <john.pye at student.unsw.edu.au> wrote:
> >> Hi all
> >>
> >> There is fairly well-known problem on MinGW with passing FILE pointers
> >> to Python. The problem seems to be that Python depends on a different
> >> version of msvcrt*.dll to that which MinGW depends on, and these
> >> different C runtimes provide different FILE implementations.
> >>
> >> The upshot of that seems to be that file objects created in Python via
> >> the 'file(...)' command can't safely be used in a SWIG module. It can be
> >> done perfectly (using SWIG typemap and PyFile_AsFile) on Linux but it
> >> fails with a segfault on Windows.
> >>
> >> What is the best possible workaround for this? Surely someone must have
> >> found a satisfactory solution to this problem?
> >>
> >> Cheeers
> >> JP
>
> --
> John Pye
> Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
> University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
> http://pye.dyndns.org/
>
>