[Cython] Multiple modules in one compilation unit

[mark florisson]

On 3 March 2011 07:43, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de> wrote:
> Lisandro Dalcin, 03.03.2011 05:38:
>>
>> On 2 March 2011 21:01, Greg Ewing<greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>>>
>>>> you'd call "cython" on a package and it would output a directory with a
>>>> single __init__.so that contains the modules compiled from all .pyx/.py
>>>> files in that package. Importing the package would then trigger an
>>>> import of
>>>> that __init__.so, which in turn will execute code in its init__init__()
>>>> function to register the other modules.
>>>
>>> I don't think it even has to be a directory with an __init__,
>>> it could just be an ordinary .so file with the name of the
>>> package.
>>>
>>> I just tried an experiment in Python:
>>>
>>> # onefilepackage.py
>>> import new, sys
>>> blarg = new.module("blarg")
>>> blarg.thing = "This is the thing"
>>> sys.modules["onefilepackage.blarg"] = blarg
>>>
>>> and two different ways of importing it:
>>>
>>> >>> from onefilepackage import blarg
>>> >>> blarg
>>> <module 'blarg' (built-in)>
>>> >>> blarg.thing
>>> 'This is the thing'
>>>
>>> >>> import onefilepackage.blarg
>>> >>> onefilepackage.blarg.thing
>>> 'This is the thing'
>>>
>>
>> I'm hacking around these lines. However, I'm working to maintain
>> different modules in different C compilation units, in order to
>> workaround the obvious issue with duplicated global C symbols.
>
> That should be ok as a first attempt to get it working quickly. I'd still
> like to see the modules merged in the long term in order to increase the
> benefit of the more compact format. They'd all share the same code generator
> and Cython's C internals, C helper functions, constants, builtins, etc., but
> each of them would use a separate (name mangling) scope to keep the visible
> C names separate.

I was thinking that perhaps we could share declarations common to all
cython modules (compiled with that version of Cython) in a cython.h
header file (which is also imho nicer to maintain than a code.put() in
e.g. ModuleNode.generate_module_preamble), and put it in e.g.
Cython/Includes and set the -I C compiler flag to point to the
Includes directory.
Module-specific functions would still be declared static, of course.
And if users want to ship generated C files to avoid Cython as a
dependency, they could simply ship the header and adjust their
setup.py.

If you want to merge modules and the "package-approach" is chosen, it
should have well-defined semantics for in-place builds, and
package/__init__.py is preferred over package.so. So how would you
solve that problem without either placing package.so in the package
itself, or giving it another name (and perhaps star-importing it from
__init__.py)? Basically, if people want to combine several modules
into one they could use the 'include' statement.

e.g. in spam.pyx you 'include "ham.pyx"' and in spam.pxd you 'include
"ham.pxd"'.

(although you'd probably rename ham.pyx to ham.pxi, and you'd probably
merge spam.pxd with ham.pxd)

In any case, I'm just wondering, would this functionality be more
useful than our current include statement and a cython.h header that
is shared by default?

>>> So assuming the same thing works with a .so instead of a .py,
>>> all you need to do is emit a .so whose init function stuffs
>>> appropriate entries into sys.modules to make it look like
>>> a package.
>>>
>>
>> However, the import machinery does not treat .so the same as *.pyx.
>> For example, I have a problem with Python 3. For .py modules, before
>> the module code starts to execute, the matching entries in sys.modules
>> is already there.
>
> And it has to be, in order to prevent accidental reimports.
>
>
>> The same happens in Python 2 for .so modules, as
>> Py_InitModule() add the entry in sys.modules early. However, in Python
>> 3 that is not te case (and only for the .so, for .py is the same as in
>> Py2), the import machinery adds the entry later, after the
>> finalization of the module init function. I'm tempted to workaround
>> this by setting the entry in sys.modules right after the call to
>> PyModule_Create() ... What do you think about this? Any potential
>> issue?
>
> No idea. I'd say, read the source and give it a try.
>
> Stefan
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