[Cython] [GSoC] Python backend for Cython using PyPy's FFI

[Carl Witty]

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Dag Sverre Seljebotn
<d.s.seljebotn at astro.uio.no> wrote:
> This seems similar to Carl Witty's port of Cython to .NET/IronPython. An
> important insight from that project is that Cython code does NOT specify an
> ABI, only an API which requires a C compiler to make sense. That is; many
> wrapped C libraries have plenty of macros, we only require partial
> definition of struct, we only require approximate typedef's, and so on.
>
> In the .NET port, the consequence was that rather than the original idea of
> generating C# code (with FFI specifications) was dropped, and one instead
> went with C++/CLR (which is a proper C++ compiler that really understands
> the C side on an API level, in addition to giving access to the .NET
> runtime).

Let me just add that a way to deal with the API vs. ABI issue would be
useful for other potential Cython targets as well, such as IronPython
using C# and Jython.  (A C# port for IronPython would be more valuable
than my C++/CLI port because it would work under Mono -- Mono doesn't
have a C++/CLI compiler and probably never will.)

Carl