Providing a Python wrapper to a C++ type.

[Marco Nawijn]

On Tuesday, October 16, 2012 10:11:52 AM UTC+2, aaron.l... at gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
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> 
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> I have a C++ module where I have a defined, working type. How would I make a wrapper for this type to be able to be used in Python? I am familiar(-ish) with the C-API for functions but I can't see concretely how one would include an interface to a type.
> 
> 
> 
> Is it this? http://docs.python.org/release/2.7.3/extending/newtypes.html
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> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Aaron

Hi Aaron,

There are a few ways of doing this. At least three come to my mind:
1. Wrap the C++ type yourself by using handcrafted code implemented with the Python C API
2. Use SWIG to wrap the C++ code and (semi) automatically create the wrapper (http://www.swig.org/)
3. Use BOOST Python to wrap the C++ code (http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/python/doc/index.html)

I would highly discourage (1) unless you are very brave and curious. Ofcourse it is a nice excercise, but if you want something to work quickly I would recommend to use either (2) or (3).

I have used both SWIG and BOOST Python and either of them worked pretty well for me. In the end I selected BOOST Python, because I was only interested in the Python wrapping (SWIG could generate many other wrappers as well).

Regards,

Marco