EVOLUTION-MANAGER

Edit File: embedding.txt

================================ Using CFFI for embedding ================================ .. contents:: You can use CFFI to generate a ``.so/.dll/.dylib`` which exports the API of your choice to any C application that wants to link with this ``.so/.dll/.dylib``. The general idea is as follows: * You write and execute a Python script, which produces a ``.so/.dll/.dylib`` file with the API of your choice. The script also gives some Python code to be "frozen" inside the ``.so``. * At runtime, the C application loads this ``.so/.dll/.dylib`` without having to know that it was produced by Python and CFFI. * The first time a C function is called, Python is initialized and the frozen Python code is executed. * The frozen Python code attaches Python functions that implement the C functions of your API, which are then used for all subsequent C function calls. One of the goals of this approach is to be entirely independent from the CPython C API: no ``Py_Initialize()`` nor ``PyRun_SimpleString()`` nor even ``PyObject``. It works identically on CPython and PyPy. This is entirely *new in version 1.5.* (PyPy contains CFFI 1.5 since release 5.0.) Usage ----- .. __: overview.html#embedding See the `paragraph in the overview page`__ for a quick introduction. In this section, we explain every step in more details. We will use here this slightly expanded example: .. code-block:: c /* file plugin.h */ typedef struct { int x, y; } point_t; extern int do_stuff(point_t *); .. code-block:: python # file plugin_build.py import cffi ffibuilder = cffi.FFI() with open('plugin.h') as f: ffibuilder.embedding_api(f.read()) ffibuilder.set_source("my_plugin", r''' #include "plugin.h" ''') ffibuilder.embedding_init_code(""" from my_plugin import ffi @ffi.def_extern() def do_stuff(p): print("adding %d and %d" % (p.x, p.y)) return p.x + p.y """) ffibuilder.compile(target="plugin-1.5.*", verbose=True) Running the code above produces a *DLL*, i,e, a dynamically-loadable library. It is a file with the extension ``.dll`` on Windows, ``.dylib`` on Mac OS/X, or ``.so`` on other platforms. As usual, it is produced by generating some intermediate ``.c`` code and then calling the regular platform-specific C compiler. See below__ for some pointers to C-level issues with using the produced library. .. __: `Issues about using the .so`_ Here are some details about the methods used above: * **ffibuilder.embedding_api(source):** parses the given C source, which declares functions that you want to be exported by the DLL. It can also declare types, constants and global variables that are part of the C-level API of your DLL. The functions that are found in ``source`` will be automatically defined in the ``.c`` file: they will contain code that initializes the Python interpreter the first time any of them is called, followed by code to call the attached Python function (with ``@ffi.def_extern()``, see next point). The global variables, on the other hand, are not automatically produced. You have to write their definition explicitly in ``ffibuilder.set_source()``, as regular C code (see the point after next). * **ffibuilder.embedding_init_code(python_code):** this gives initialization-time Python source code. This code is copied ("frozen") inside the DLL. At runtime, the code is executed when the DLL is first initialized, just after Python itself is initialized. This newly initialized Python interpreter has got an extra "built-in" module that can be loaded magically without accessing any files, with a line like "``from my_plugin import ffi, lib``". The name ``my_plugin`` comes from the first argument to ``ffibuilder.set_source()``. This module represents "the caller's C world" from the point of view of Python. The initialization-time Python code can import other modules or packages as usual. You may have typical Python issues like needing to set up ``sys.path`` somehow manually first. For every function declared within ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()``, the initialization-time Python code or one of the modules it imports should use the decorator ``@ffi.def_extern()`` to attach a corresponding Python function to it. If the initialization-time Python code fails with an exception, then you get a traceback printed to stderr, along with more information to help you identify problems like wrong ``sys.path``. If some function remains unattached at the time where the C code tries to call it, an error message is also printed to stderr and the function returns zero/null. Note that the CFFI module never calls ``exit()``, but CPython itself contains code that calls ``exit()``, for example if importing ``site`` fails. This may be worked around in the future. * **ffibuilder.set_source(c_module_name, c_code):** set the name of the module from Python's point of view. It also gives more C code which will be included in the generated C code. In trivial examples it can be an empty string. It is where you would ``#include`` some other files, define global variables, and so on. The macro ``CFFI_DLLEXPORT`` is available to this C code: it expands to the platform-specific way of saying "the following declaration should be exported from the DLL". For example, you would put "``extern int my_glob;``" in ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` and "``CFFI_DLLEXPORT int my_glob = 42;``" in ``ffibuilder.set_source()``. Currently, any *type* declared in ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` must also be present in the ``c_code``. This is automatic if this code contains a line like ``#include "plugin.h"`` in the example above. * **ffibuilder.compile([target=...] [, verbose=True]):** make the C code and compile it. By default, it produces a file called ``c_module_name.dll``, ``c_module_name.dylib`` or ``c_module_name.so``, but the default can be changed with the optional ``target`` keyword argument. You can use ``target="foo.*"`` with a literal ``*`` to ask for a file called ``foo.dll`` on Windows, ``foo.dylib`` on OS/X and ``foo.so`` elsewhere. One reason for specifying an alternate ``target`` is to include characters not usually allowed in Python module names, like "``plugin-1.5.*``". For more complicated cases, you can call instead ``ffibuilder.emit_c_code("foo.c")`` and compile the resulting ``foo.c`` file using other means. CFFI's compilation logic is based on the standard library ``distutils`` package, which is really developed and tested for the purpose of making CPython extension modules, not other DLLs. More reading ------------ If you're reading this page about embedding and you are not familiar with CFFI already, here are a few pointers to what you could read next: * For the ``@ffi.def_extern()`` functions, integer C types are passed simply as Python integers; and simple pointers-to-struct and basic arrays are all straightforward enough. However, sooner or later you will need to read about this topic in more details here__. * ``@ffi.def_extern()``: see `documentation here,`__ notably on what happens if the Python function raises an exception. * To create Python objects attached to C data, one common solution is to use ``ffi.new_handle()``. See documentation here__. * In embedding mode, the major direction is C code that calls Python functions. This is the opposite of the regular extending mode of CFFI, in which the major direction is Python code calling C. That's why the page `Using the ffi/lib objects`_ talks first about the latter, and why the direction "C code that calls Python" is generally referred to as "callbacks" in that page. If you also need to have your Python code call C code, read more about `Embedding and Extending`_ below. * ``ffibuilder.embedding_api(source)``: follows the same syntax as ``ffibuilder.cdef()``, `documented here.`__ You can use the "``...``" syntax as well, although in practice it may be less useful than it is for ``cdef()``. On the other hand, it is expected that often the C sources that you need to give to ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` would be exactly the same as the content of some ``.h`` file that you want to give to users of your DLL. That's why the example above does this:: with open('foo.h') as f: ffibuilder.embedding_api(f.read()) Note that a drawback of this approach is that ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` doesn't support ``#ifdef`` directives. You may have to use a more convoluted expression like:: with open('foo.h') as f: lines = [line for line in f if not line.startswith('#')] ffibuilder.embedding_api(''.join(lines)) As in the example above, you can also use the same ``foo.h`` from ``ffibuilder.set_source()``:: ffibuilder.set_source('module_name', r''' #include "foo.h" ''') .. __: using.html#working .. __: using.html#def-extern .. __: ref.html#ffi-new-handle .. __: cdef.html#cdef .. _`Using the ffi/lib objects`: using.html Troubleshooting --------------- The error message cffi extension module 'c_module_name' has unknown version 0x2701 means that the running Python interpreter located a CFFI version older than 1.5. CFFI 1.5 or newer must be installed in the running Python. Issues about using the .so -------------------------- This paragraph describes issues that are not necessarily specific to CFFI. It assumes that you have obtained the ``.so/.dylib/.dll`` file as described above, but that you have troubles using it. (In summary: it is a mess. This is my own experience, slowly built by using Google and by listening to reports from various platforms. Please report any inaccuracies in this paragraph or better ways to do things.) * The file produced by CFFI should follow this naming pattern: ``libmy_plugin.so`` on Linux, ``libmy_plugin.dylib`` on Mac, or ``my_plugin.dll`` on Windows (no ``lib`` prefix on Windows). * First note that this file does not contain the Python interpreter nor the standard library of Python. You still need it to be somewhere. There are ways to compact it to a smaller number of files, but this is outside the scope of CFFI (please report if you used some of these ways successfully so that I can add some links here). * In what we'll call the "main program", the ``.so`` can be either used dynamically (e.g. by calling ``dlopen()`` or ``LoadLibrary()`` inside the main program), or at compile-time (e.g. by compiling it with ``gcc -lmy_plugin``). The former case is always used if you're building a plugin for a program, and the program itself doesn't need to be recompiled. The latter case is for making a CFFI library that is more tightly integrated inside the main program. * In the case of compile-time usage: you can add the gcc option ``-Lsome/path/`` before ``-lmy_plugin`` to describe where the ``libmy_plugin.so`` is. On some platforms, notably Linux, ``gcc`` will complain if it can find ``libmy_plugin.so`` but not ``libpython27.so`` or ``libpypy-c.so``. To fix it, you need to call ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/some/path/to/libpypy gcc``. * When actually executing the main program, it needs to find the ``libmy_plugin.so`` but also ``libpython27.so`` or ``libpypy-c.so``. For PyPy, unpack a PyPy distribution and you get a full directory structure with ``libpypy-c.so`` inside a ``bin`` subdirectory, or on Windows ``pypy-c.dll`` inside the top directory; you must not move this file around, but just point to it. One way to point to it is by running the main program with some environment variable: ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/some/path/to/libpypy`` on Linux, ``DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/some/path/to/libpypy`` on OS/X. * You can avoid the ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH`` issue if you compile ``libmy_plugin.so`` with the path hard-coded inside in the first place. On Linux, this is done by ``gcc -Wl,-rpath=/some/path``. You would put this option in ``ffibuilder.set_source("my_plugin", ..., extra_link_args=['-Wl,-rpath=/some/path/to/libpypy'])``. The path can start with ``$ORIGIN`` to mean "the directory where ``libmy_plugin.so`` is". You can then specify a path relative to that place, like ``extra_link_args=['-Wl,-rpath=$ORIGIN/../venv/bin']``. Use ``ldd libmy_plugin.so`` to look at what path is currently compiled in after the expansion of ``$ORIGIN``.) After this, you don't need ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH`` any more to locate ``libpython27.so`` or ``libpypy-c.so`` at runtime. In theory it should also cover the call to ``gcc`` for the main program. I wasn't able to make ``gcc`` happy without ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH`` on Linux if the rpath starts with ``$ORIGIN``, though. * The same rpath trick might be used to let the main program find ``libmy_plugin.so`` in the first place without ``LD_LIBRARY_PATH``. (This doesn't apply if the main program uses ``dlopen()`` to load it as a dynamic plugin.) You'd make the main program with ``gcc -Wl,-rpath=/path/to/libmyplugin``, possibly with ``$ORIGIN``. The ``$`` in ``$ORIGIN`` causes various shell problems on its own: if using a common shell you need to say ``gcc -Wl,-rpath=\$ORIGIN``. From a Makefile, you need to say something like ``gcc -Wl,-rpath=\$$ORIGIN``. Using multiple CFFI-made DLLs ----------------------------- Multiple CFFI-made DLLs can be used by the same process. Note that all CFFI-made DLLs in a process share a single Python interpreter. The effect is the same as the one you get by trying to build a large Python application by assembling a lot of unrelated packages. Some of these might be libraries that monkey-patch some functions from the standard library, for example, which might be unexpected from other parts. Multithreading -------------- Multithreading should work transparently, based on Python's standard Global Interpreter Lock. If two threads both try to call a C function when Python is not yet initialized, then locking occurs. One thread proceeds with initialization and blocks the other thread. The other thread will be allowed to continue only when the execution of the initialization-time Python code is done. If the two threads call two *different* CFFI-made DLLs, the Python initialization itself will still be serialized, but the two pieces of initialization-time Python code will not. The idea is that there is a priori no reason for one DLL to wait for initialization of the other DLL to be complete. After initialization, Python's standard Global Interpreter Lock kicks in. The end result is that when one CPU progresses on executing Python code, no other CPU can progress on executing more Python code from another thread of the same process. At regular intervals, the lock switches to a different thread, so that no single thread should appear to block indefinitely. Testing ------- For testing purposes, a CFFI-made DLL can be imported in a running Python interpreter instead of being loaded like a C shared library. You might have some issues with the file name: for example, on Windows, Python expects the file to be called ``c_module_name.pyd``, but the CFFI-made DLL is called ``target.dll`` instead. The base name ``target`` is the one specified in ``ffibuilder.compile()``, and on Windows the extension is ``.dll`` instead of ``.pyd``. You have to rename or copy the file, or on POSIX use a symlink. The module then works like a regular CFFI extension module. It is imported with "``from c_module_name import ffi, lib``" and exposes on the ``lib`` object all C functions. You can test it by calling these C functions. The initialization-time Python code frozen inside the DLL is executed the first time such a call is done. Embedding and Extending ----------------------- The embedding mode is not incompatible with the non-embedding mode of CFFI. You can use *both* ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` and ``ffibuilder.cdef()`` in the same build script. You put in the former the declarations you want to be exported by the DLL; you put in the latter only the C functions and types that you want to share between C and Python, but not export from the DLL. As an example of that, consider the case where you would like to have a DLL-exported C function written in C directly, maybe to handle some cases before calling Python functions. To do that, you must *not* put the function's signature in ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()``. (Note that this requires more hacks if you use ``ffibuilder.embedding_api(f.read())``.) You must only write the custom function definition in ``ffibuilder.set_source()``, and prefix it with the macro CFFI_DLLEXPORT: .. code-block:: c CFFI_DLLEXPORT int myfunc(int a, int b) { /* implementation here */ } This function can, if it wants, invoke Python functions using the general mechanism of "callbacks"---called this way because it is a call from C to Python, although in this case it is not calling anything back: .. code-block:: python ffibuilder.cdef(""" extern "Python" int mycb(int); """) ffibuilder.set_source("my_plugin", r""" static int mycb(int); /* the callback: forward declaration, to make it accessible from the C code that follows */ CFFI_DLLEXPORT int myfunc(int a, int b) { int product = a * b; /* some custom C code */ return mycb(product); } """) and then the Python initialization code needs to contain the lines: .. code-block:: python @ffi.def_extern() def mycb(x): print "hi, I'm called with x =", x return x * 10 This ``@ffi.def_extern`` is attaching a Python function to the C callback ``mycb()``, which in this case is not exported from the DLL. Nevertheless, the automatic initialization of Python occurs when ``mycb()`` is called, if it happens to be the first function called from C. More precisely, it does not happen when ``myfunc()`` is called: this is just a C function, with no extra code magically inserted around it. It only happens when ``myfunc()`` calls ``mycb()``. As the above explanation hints, this is how ``ffibuilder.embedding_api()`` actually implements function calls that directly invoke Python code; here, we have merely decomposed it explicitly, in order to add some custom C code in the middle. In case you need to force, from C code, Python to be initialized before the first ``@ffi.def_extern()`` is called, you can do so by calling the C function ``cffi_start_python()`` with no argument. It returns an integer, 0 or -1, to tell if the initialization succeeded or not. Currently there is no way to prevent a failing initialization from also dumping a traceback and more information to stderr.