[issue43022] Unable to dynamically load functions from python3.dll

[Paul Moore]

New submission from Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com>:

I am writing a small application using the embedded distribution to run a script supplied by the user. The requirements are very simple, so all I need to do is set up argv and call Py_Main.

I'm trying to load the Py_Main function dynamically (for flexibility - see below) but GetProcAddress returns 0 when loading the function from python3.dll (the stable ABI). This seems to be because the symbols in python3.dll are special "fowarding" symbols, that GetProcAddress can't handle.

Is there a way to dynamically load the Python API from the stable ABI? If there isn't currently, could one be added?

To explain my requirements in a bit more detail, I don't want to statically link, because I want to put the Python distribution in a subdirectory, so that it isn't visible on PATH along with my executable, but I'd rather avoid the complexities involved in adding a dedicated SxS manifest to point the loader to the correct subdirectory for the python3.dll.

Furthermore, I want to provide a graceful fallback if the Python distribution is missing (initially, just a friendly error message, but in future maybe locating an alternative Python installation to use) and static linking won't allow that as I can't recover control if the expected Python DLL isn't present.

The reason I want to use the stable ABI is so that I can upgrade the embedded distribution without needing to rebuild the C code. I could search for python3X.dll, and just ignore the stable ABI. But that's more filesystem code than I really want to write in C... And honestly, I feel that dynamically linking is a perfect use case for the stable ABI, so it really should be supported.

----------
components: Windows
messages: 385621
nosy: paul.moore, steve.dower, tim.golden, zach.ware
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Unable to dynamically load functions from python3.dll
type: behavior
versions: Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue43022>
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