The Final Frontier

Python has a lot of stuff, but sometimes you need more

  • Access to special purpose libraries and applications
  • You have a favorite system call.
  • You need serious performance

Extension Building

  • Python interpreter can be extended with functions written C
  • This is how many of the built-in modules work.

General Idea

  • You write a C extension (using special Python API)
  • Compile the extension into dynamic link library (DLL)
  • Dynamically load the extension using 'import'
<<< O'Reilly OSCON 2000, Advanced Python Programming, Slide 118
July 17, 2000, beazley@cs.uchicago.edu
>>>