ctypes & strings

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

Red Rackham  wrote:

>I would like to pass a string into a dll function.  I notice that to pass using
ctypes, it has to be a ctypes type.  >Looking at the ctypes doc page I don't see
a c_string class.

The following seems to work for me:

In the c programme:

/*
    This routine outputs and inputs a symmetric block of bytes, writing
    the outputs out and reading the inputs in, replacing the chars in the
    original output string
*/

 unsigned char read_write (unsigned char *inputs, unsigned char *outputs, int
lenin, int lenout)
    {
    int i = 0;
    int addr = 0;
    int addrhi = 0;
    int oind = 0;
    char rv;
    while (i < lenin)
        {
        addrhi = i >> 8 & 0x3f;     // we can have 64 * 256 adresses in the top
6 + 8 bits
        addr = i & 0xff;            // this is low order
        rv = put_1(addrhi|0xd0);    // put out the addy
        rv = put_3(addr);
        rv = put_1(addrhi|0x90);    // make a read strobe on bit 6
        inputs[i] = get_0() ^ 255;  // read the char
        rv = put_1(addr|0xd0);      // raise strobe again
        i++;
        }

    while (i < lenin + lenout)
        {
        oind = i - lenin;           // index into outputs start at 0
        addrhi = i >> 8 & 0x3f;     // we can have 64 * 256 adresses in the top
6 + 8 bits
        addr = i & 0xff;            // this is low order
        rv = put_1(addrhi|0xd0);    // put out the addy
        rv = put_3(addr);
        rv = put_0(outputs[oind]);  // put out the output
        rv = put_1(addrhi|0x50);    // make a write strobe on bit 7
        rv = put_1(addrhi|0xd0);    // raise write strobe again
        i++;
        }
    return *inputs;
    }


Then in the python it is used as follows:

import sys, os, ctypes, time

io = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('./lib_gpio.a')

def do_io(ins, outs): # ins and outs are normal python strings that must exist

        # this routine happens to work by side effect - the ins string is
changed by the c routine

     r = io.read_write(ins,outs,len(ins),len(outs))
     return

The c routine will actually break Python's normal string
immmutability and give you back a changed ins.

It is in general not a good idea to change the passed string
like I am doing - but you wanted to know how
to pass a python string, and the outs example should get
you going - a string is an array of characters in c...


HTH

- Hendrik