Calling CC from Python

python is a versatile and popular programming language known for its simplicity and readability. however, there are cases where you may need to utilize the speed and low-level capabilities of c or c++ to optimize certain parts of your code. fortunately, python provides several ways to call c/c++ functions, and in this tutorial, we will explore some of these methods with code examples.
before diving into the various methods, let's clarify the scenarios where you might want to call c/c++ from python:
the ctypes library is a built-in python module that allows you to call c functions from shared libraries (.dll on windows, .so on linux, and .dylib on macos).
let's assume you have a c function in a shared library called mylibrary:
now, you want to call this function from python:
you can also pass data between python and c by specifying argument and return types. for example:
another way to integrate c/c++ code is by creating python extension modules. this approach allows you to write c/c++ code that python can import and use like any other module.
let's say you want to create a python module that calculates the factorial of a number using c++:
to build the extension module:
now, you can use this module in python:
cython is a superset of python that allows you to write c extensions with python-like syntax. it compiles python-like code to c, making it easier to integrate c/c++ with python.
let's create a cython module to calculate fibonacci numbers:
to build the cython module:
now, you can use the module in python:
integrating c/c++ with python can significantly boost performance and enable low-level operations. in this tutorial, we explored three methods:
choose the method that best suits your project's needs and leverage the power of both python and c/c++ to create efficient and flexible applications.
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