ctypesgen

                          ctypesgen
                          ---------

              (c) Ctypesgen developers 2007-2022
             https://github.com/ctypesgen/ctypesgen

ctypesgen is a pure-python ctypes wrapper generator. It parses C header files and creates a wrapper for libraries based on what it finds.

Preprocessor macros are handled in a manner consistent with typical C code. Preprocessor macro functions are translated into Python functions that are then made available to the user of the newly-generated Python wrapper library.

It can also output JSON, which can be used with Mork, which generates bindings for Lua, using the alien module (which binds libffi to Lua).

Documentation

See https://github.com/ctypesgen/ctypesgen/wiki for full documentation.

Run ctypesgen --help for full range of available options.

Installation

ctypesgen can be installed by pip install ctypesgen. It requires Python 3.7 to run.

Basic Usage

This project automatically generates ctypes wrappers for header files written in C.

For example, if you'd like to generate Neon bindings, you can do so using this recipe (using a standard pip install):

ctypesgen -lneon /usr/local/include/neon/ne_*.h -o neon.py

Some libraries, such as APR, need special flags to compile. You can pass these flags in on the command line.

For example:

FLAGS = `apr-1-config --cppflags --includes`
ctypesgen $FLAGS -llibapr-1.so $HOME/include/apr-1/apr*.h -o apr.py

Sometimes, libraries will depend on each other. You can specify these dependencies using -mmodule, where module is the name of the dependency module.

Here's an example for apr_util:

ctypesgen $FLAGS -llibaprutil-1.so $HOME/include/apr-1/ap[ru]*.h \
	-mapr -o apr_util.py

If you want JSON output (e.g. for generating Lua bindings), use

--output-language=json

When outputting JSON, you will probably also want to use

--all-headers --builtin-symbols --no-stddef-types --no-gnu-types
--no-python-types

Related Software of Interest

libffi is a portable Foreign Function Interface library: http://sources.redhat.com/libffi/

Mork, the friendly alien, can be found at: https://github.com/rrthomas/mork

License

ctypesgen is distributed under the New (2-clause) BSD License: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php

Copyright (c) 2007-2022, Ctypesgen Developers All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Change Log

v1.1.1

• Fixed inconsistency in version output in released packages

v1.1.0

This release has a number of bug fixes in addition to a few new features. Following a complete transition to Python 3, with dropped Python 2 support, major work was made towards code modernization and quality.

• The code is now Black formatted and Flake8 tested
• Greatly improved unittest framework
• Embedded PLY version updated to 3.11
• New option: --no-embed-preamble create separate files for preamble and loader instead of embedding in each output file
• New option: --allow-gnu-c do not undefine __GNUC__
• Fixed library loader search path on macOS
• Fixed rare bug, processing (legacy) header files with MacRoman encoding on macOS
• Added full support for floating and integer constants
• Added support for sized integer types on Windows
• Added support to handle restrict and _Noreturn keywords
• Added name formats to posix library loader
• Fixed mapping of 'short int' to c_short
• Git tags are now using x.y.z format

v1.0.2

Many issues fixed. Parse gcc attributes more

Implements automatic calling convention selection based on gcc attributes for stdcall/cdecl.

• Simplify and unify library loader for various platforms. Improve library path searches on Linux (parsed ld.so.conf includes now).
• First implementaion of #pragma pack
• First implemenation of #undef
• Adds several command line options: -D --define -U --undefine --no-undefs -P --strip-prefix --debug-level

v1.0.1

Fix handling of function prototypes

Other minor improvments included.

v1.0.0

Py2/Py3 support

Various development branches merged back

In addition to the various developments from the different branches, this tag also represents a code state that:

• ties in with Travis CI to watch code developments
• improves testsuite, including moving all JSON tests to testsuite
• includes a decent Debian package build configuration
• automatically creates a man page to be included in the Debian package