Python extension module with variable number of arguments - python

I am trying to figure out how in C extension modules to have a variable (and maybe) quite large number of arguments to a function.
Reading about PyArg_ParseTuple it seems you have to know how many to accept, some mandatory and some optional but all with their own variable. I was hoping PyArg_UnpackTuple would be able to handle this but it seems to just give me bus errors when I try and use it in what appears to be the wrong way.
As an example take the following python code that one might want to make into an extension module (in C).
def hypot(*vals):
if len(vals) !=1 :
return math.sqrt(sum((v ** 2 for v in vals)))
else:
return math.sqrt(sum((v ** 2 for v in vals[0])))
This can be called with any number of arguments or iterated over, hypot(3,4,5), hypot([3,4,5]), and hypot(*[3,4,5]) all give the same answer.
The start of my C function looks like this
static PyObject *hypot_tb(PyObject *self, PyObject *args) {
// lots of code
// PyArg_ParseTuple or PyArg_UnpackTuple
}
Many thinks to yasar11732. Here for the next guy is a fully working extension module (_toolboxmodule.c) that simply takes in any number or integer arguments and returns a list made up of those arguments (with a poor name). A toy but illustrates what needed to be done.
#include <Python.h>
int ParseArguments(long arr[],Py_ssize_t size, PyObject *args) {
/* Get arbitrary number of positive numbers from Py_Tuple */
Py_ssize_t i;
PyObject *temp_p, *temp_p2;
for (i=0;i<size;i++) {
temp_p = PyTuple_GetItem(args,i);
if(temp_p == NULL) {return NULL;}
/* Check if temp_p is numeric */
if (PyNumber_Check(temp_p) != 1) {
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError,"Non-numeric argument.");
return NULL;
}
/* Convert number to python long and than C unsigned long */
temp_p2 = PyNumber_Long(temp_p);
arr[i] = PyLong_AsUnsignedLong(temp_p2);
Py_DECREF(temp_p2);
}
return 1;
}
static PyObject *hypot_tb(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
Py_ssize_t TupleSize = PyTuple_Size(args);
long *nums = malloc(TupleSize * sizeof(unsigned long));
PyObject *list_out;
int i;
if(!TupleSize) {
if(!PyErr_Occurred())
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError,"You must supply at least one argument.");
return NULL;
}
if (!(ParseArguments(nums, TupleSize, args)) {
free(nums);
return NULL;
}
list_out = PyList_New(TupleSize);
for(i=0;i<TupleSize;i++)
PyList_SET_ITEM(list_out, i, PyInt_FromLong(nums[i]));
free(nums);
return (PyObject *)list_out;
}
static PyMethodDef toolbox_methods[] = {
{ "hypot", (PyCFunction)hypot_tb, METH_VARARGS,
"Add docs here\n"},
// NULL terminate Python looking at the object
{ NULL, NULL, 0, NULL }
};
PyMODINIT_FUNC init_toolbox(void) {
Py_InitModule3("_toolbox", toolbox_methods,
"toolbox module");
}
In python then it is:
>>> import _toolbox
>>> _toolbox.hypot(*range(4, 10))
[4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

I had used something like this earlier. It could be a bad code as I am not an experienced C coder, but it worked for me. The idea is, *args is just a Python tuple, and you can do anything that you could do with a Python tuple. You can check http://docs.python.org/c-api/tuple.html .
int
ParseArguments(unsigned long arr[],Py_ssize_t size, PyObject *args) {
/* Get arbitrary number of positive numbers from Py_Tuple */
Py_ssize_t i;
PyObject *temp_p, *temp_p2;
for (i=0;i<size;i++) {
temp_p = PyTuple_GetItem(args,i);
if(temp_p == NULL) {return NULL;}
/* Check if temp_p is numeric */
if (PyNumber_Check(temp_p) != 1) {
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError,"Non-numeric argument.");
return NULL;
}
/* Convert number to python long and than C unsigned long */
temp_p2 = PyNumber_Long(temp_p);
arr[i] = PyLong_AsUnsignedLong(temp_p2);
Py_DECREF(temp_p2);
if (arr[i] == 0) {
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ValueError,"Zero doesn't allowed as argument.");
return NULL;
}
if (PyErr_Occurred()) {return NULL; }
}
return 1;
}
I was calling this function like this:
static PyObject *
function_name_was_here(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
Py_ssize_t TupleSize = PyTuple_Size(args);
Py_ssize_t i;
struct bigcouples *temp = malloc(sizeof(struct bigcouples));
unsigned long current;
if(!TupleSize) {
if(!PyErr_Occurred())
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError,"You must supply at least one argument.");
free(temp);
return NULL;
}
unsigned long *nums = malloc(TupleSize * sizeof(unsigned long));
if(!ParseArguments(nums, TupleSize, args)){
/* Make a cleanup and than return null*/
return null;
}

Related

How do you correctly pass a pointer between calls with Python C-API

I'm writing a python + c module, and I'm trying to pass a pointer to a certain struct I need. I'm using PyCapsule to encapsulate the pointer, but I'm having problems when retrieving the pointer from it.
The C functions used are like:
static PyObject *
spam_new (PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
unsigned int number;
struct spam *pointer;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "I", &number)) {
return NULL;
}
state = (struct spam*) malloc(sizeof (struct spam));
if (state == NULL) {
return NULL;
}
spam_init(*pointer, number);
return PyCapsule_New((void*) pointer, "spam", &spam_destroy);
}
static PyObject *
spam_get (PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
PyObject *capsule, *result;
void *raw_pointer;
struct spam *pointer;
unsigned long long int number;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "OK", capsule, &number)) {
return NULL;
}
printf("[DEBUG] Number: %llu\n", number);
printf("[DEBUG] Capsule pointer: %p\n", capsule);
raw_pointer = PyCapsule_GetPointer(capsule, "spam");
if (raw_pointer == NULL) {
return NULL;
}
pointer = (struct spam*) raw_pointer;
.
.
.
}
They are both declared with METH_VARARGS.
When in python, custom.new(1) returns a capsule as expected, which I store in a variable c.
When calling custom.get(c, 14) python crashes at the PyCapsule_GetPointer function call. Both prints show the same (14), meaning that PyArg_ParseTuple is not getting the capsule passed as a parameter.
For security reasons passing the pointer as a long is not an option.
Thanks.
In the Python documentation is stated that the "O" format string will try to get a pointer to a PyObject (a PyObject*), not a PyObject.
Therefore when using PyArg_ParseTuple to get a PyObject* you have to pass a pointer to a PyObject*.
The provided code was fixed by adding a & to the capsule in the line
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "OK", &capsule, &number)) {
Fixed thanks to Davis Herring's comment.

C++ call Python function with several argument

I want to call the Python function in C++ using python.h but there are some problems.
Here is my Python function sample
def function1(tuple1, tuple2, string1, string2 ,string3, double1, string4 = ""):
...
and the C++ sample
double function_adapter(const vector<double> &vec1, const vector<double> &vec2, const string &string1, const string &string2, const string &string3, const double double1, const string &string4)
{
Py_Initial();
PyRun_SimpleString("import sys");
PyRun_SimpleString("sys.path.append(\"./\")");
PyObject *pModule, *pFunc, *pRes;
pModule = PyImport_Import(PyString_FromString("PythonFile"));
pFunc = PyObject_GetAttrString(pModule, "function1");
PyObject *pArgs = PyTuple_New(7);
PyObject *pVec1 = PyTuple_New(vec1.size());
for(size_t i = 0; i < vec1.size(); ++i) {
PyTuple_SetItem(pVec1, i, Py_BuildValue("f", vec1[i]));
}
PyObject *pVec2 = PyTuple_New(vec2.size());
for(size_t i = 0; i < vec2.size(); ++i) {
PyTuple_SetItem(pVec2, i, Py_BuildValue("f", vec2[i]));
}
PyObject *pString1 = Py_BuildValue("s", string1);
PyObject *pString2 = Py_BuildValue("s", string2);
PyObject *pString3 = Py_BuildValue("s", string3);
PyObject *pDouble1 = Py_BuildValue("f", double1);
PyObject *pString4 = Py_BuildValue("s", string4);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 0, pVec1);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 1, pVec2);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 2, pString1);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 3, pString2);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 4, pString3);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 5, pDouble1);
PyTuple_SetItem(pArgs, 6, pString4);
pRes = PyObject_CallObject(pFunc, pArgs);
if(pRes == NULL) {
return -2;
}
int res = PyLong_AsLong(pRes);
Py_DecRef(pModule);
.
.
.
Py_Finalize();
return res;
}
But the pRes returns NULL. And the PyObject_CallObject is just like a blackbox, I can't step in to look how it works.
So I want to ask that is there anything wrong in my code?
And the arguments preparation is right or not? (There are few examples in this case on the internet.)
A CPython API function that returns NULL means that an error has occurred. You can use the PyErr_* set of API functions to query this exception.
For debugging, the most useful is probably PyErr_Print(), which will just print the exception and stack trace (if any) to stderr.
Make sure to double check that pModule and pFunc are not NULL. The exception may have occurred when trying to import the module or get the function from the module. CPython does not raise exceptions, it just returns NULL on an error. So checking the return value of C-API functions is important.

Profiling C extension which calls back into Python

Suppose for the purpose of this discussion, I have a function like this:
PyObject* tuple_from_dict(PyObject* ftype, PyObject* factory, PyObject* values) {
PyObject* ttype = PyTuple_GetItem(factory, 1);
PyObject* fmapping = PyTuple_GetItem(factory, 2);
PyObject* key;
PyObject* value;
Py_ssize_t pos = 0;
Py_ssize_t arg_len = 0;
Py_ssize_t field;
PyObject* result;
if (PyDict_Size(fmapping) == 0) {
result = PyObject_Call(ttype, PyTuple_New(0), NULL);
Py_INCREF(result);
return result;
}
while (PyDict_Next(fmapping, &pos, &key, &value)) {
field = PyLong_AsSsize_t(value);
if (field > arg_len) {
arg_len = field;
}
}
PyObject* args = PyTuple_New(arg_len + 1);
pos = 0;
while (pos < arg_len + 1) {
Py_INCREF(Py_None);
PyTuple_SetItem(args, pos, Py_None);
pos++;
}
pos = 0;
while (PyDict_Next(values, &pos, &key, &value)) {
field = PyLong_AsSsize_t(PyDict_GetItem(fmapping, key));
PyTuple_SetItem(args, field, value);
}
result = PyObject_Call(ttype, args, NULL);
if (result) {
Py_INCREF(result);
}
return result;
}
It doesn't matter what exactly does it do, the important point is that it calls PyObject_Call(...), which I suspect to be slow. But, the slowness we are talking about would not be noticeable on per call basis (the code overall does couple thousands calls per 1/100 of second). So... I need an aggregate, or some way of measuring the time with very high precision (so, clock_t doesn't seem like it's a good level of precision).
It's OK if the solution will work only on Linux. It is also OK if I could somehow slow everything down, but get a more precise measurement of the timing in question.
Is clock_gettime() useful? It is POSIX interface to high resolution timer. This post provides this example usage.
#include <iostream>
#include <time.h>
using namespace std;
timespec diff(timespec start, timespec end);
int main()
{
timespec time1, time2;
int temp;
clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &time1);
for (int i = 0; i< 242000000; i++)
temp+=temp;
clock_gettime(CLOCK_PROCESS_CPUTIME_ID, &time2);
cout<<diff(time1,time2).tv_sec<<":"<<diff(time1,time2).tv_nsec<<endl;
return 0;
}
timespec diff(timespec start, timespec end)
{
timespec temp;
if ((end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec)<0) {
temp.tv_sec = end.tv_sec-start.tv_sec-1;
temp.tv_nsec = 1000000000+end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec;
} else {
temp.tv_sec = end.tv_sec-start.tv_sec;
temp.tv_nsec = end.tv_nsec-start.tv_nsec;
}
return temp;
}

Python C-Extension segfaults when accessing through tp_getset

I'm trying to write a C-Extension for python. What I'd like to write is a ModPolynomial class which represents a polynomial on (Z/nZ)[x]/x^r-1[even though you may answer to my question without knowing anything of such polynomials].
I've written some code, which seems to work. Basically I just store three PyObject* in my ModPoly structure. Now I'd like to add the storage for the coefficients of the polynomial.
Since I want the coefficients to be read-only, I'd like to add a getter/setter pair of functions through PyGetSetDef. But when I access the getter from python(e.g print pol.coefficients) I receive a Segmentation Fault.
The original code, without the "coefficients" can be found here.
The code with the coefficients is here.
I hope someone of you can tell me where I'm doing wrong here.
By the way, also comments on the code are welcome. This is my first extension and I know that I'm probably doing things quite badly.
As ecatmur says in the comments PyVarObject store a certain number of "slots" at the end of the struct. So I've decided to avoid them.
The relevant code is:
typedef struct {
PyObject_HEAD
/* Type specific fields */
Py_ssize_t ob_size;
PyObject **ob_item;
Py_ssize_t allocated;
PyObject *r_modulus;
PyObject *n_modulus;
PyObject *degree;
} ModPoly;
static PyObject *
ModPoly_new(PyTypeObject *type, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwds)
{
ModPoly *self;
self = (ModPoly *)type->tp_alloc(type, 0);
if (self != NULL) {
[...]
self->ob_size = 0;
self->ob_item = NULL;
self->allocated = 0;
}
return (PyObject *)self;
}
static int
ModPoly_init(ModPoly *self, PyObject *args, PyObject *kwds)
{
PyObject *r_modulus=NULL, *n_modulus=NULL, *coefs=NULL, *tmp;
PyObject **tmp_ar;
static char *kwlist[] = {"r_modulus", "n_modulus", "coefficients", NULL};
if (!PyArg_ParseTupleAndKeywords(args, kwds, "OO|O", kwlist,
&r_modulus, &n_modulus, &coefs))
return -1;
[...]
// The polynomial defaults to "x", so the coefficients should be [0, 1].
tmp_ar = (PyObject **)malloc(2 * sizeof(PyObject*));
if (tmp_ar == NULL) {
Py_DECREF(self->r_modulus);
Py_DECREF(self->n_modulus);
Py_DECREF(self->degree);
return -1;
}
tmp_ar[0] = PyInt_FromLong(0);
if (tmp_ar[0] != NULL) {
tmp_ar[1] = PyInt_FromLong(1);
}
if (tmp_ar[0] == NULL || tmp_ar[0] == NULL) {
Py_DECREF(self->r_modulus);
Py_DECREF(self->n_modulus);
Py_DECREF(self->degree);
Py_XDECREF(tmp_ar[0]);
Py_XDECREF(tmp_ar[1]);
free(tmp_ar);
return -1;
}
self->ob_size = 2;
self->allocated = 2;
return 0;
}
[...]
static PyObject *
ModPoly_getcoefs(ModPoly *self, void *closure)
{
printf("here"); // "here" is never printed
PyTupleObject *res=(PyTupleObject*)PyTuple_New(self->ob_size);
Py_ssize_t i;
PyObject *tmp;
if (res == NULL)
return NULL;
for (i=0; i < self->ob_size; i++) {
tmp = self->ob_item[i];
Py_INCREF(tmp);
PyTuple_SET_ITEM(res, i, tmp);
}
return (PyObject *)res;
}
static PyObject *
ModPoly_setcoefs(ModPoly *self, PyObject *value, void* closure)
{
PyErr_SetString(PyExc_AttributeError,
"Cannot set the coefficients of a polynomial.");
return NULL;
}
[...]
static PyGetSetDef ModPoly_getsetters[] = {
{"coefficients",
(getter)ModPoly_getcoefs, (setter)ModPoly_setcoefs,
"The polynomial coefficients.", NULL},
{NULL, 0, 0, NULL, NULL}
};
static PyTypeObject ModPolyType = {
PyObject_HEAD_INIT(NULL)
0, /* ob_size */
[...]
ModPoly_members, /* tp_members */
ModPoly_getsetters, /* tp_getset */
0, /* tp_base */
[...]
};
[...]
edit
I tried to reimplement the getter instruction by instruction, and I understood what I wasn't doing. In the ModPoly_init function I create the tmp_ar where I store the coefficients, but I do not assign it to self->ob_item.
-facepalm-
You only seem to be assigning to ModPoly.ob_item in ModPoly_new() (setting it to NULL).
ModPoly_getcoefs() then dereferences the null pointer, which would give you your segfault. It looks like you intended to assign to ob_item in ModPoly_init(), but don't actually get around to doing so.

extending global c variable array with swig and python

I have a global variable array in c that I'd like to pull into python. And I'm having difficulties with varout typemap:
/* example.c */
int foo[] = {0, 1};
And here is the very vanilla interface:
/* example.i */
%module example
%{
extern int foo[2];
%}
%typemap(varout) int foo[] {
int i;
//$1, $1_dim0, $1_dim1
$result = PyList_New($1_dim0);
for (i = 0; i < $1_dim0; i++) {
PyObject *o = PyInt_FromLong((double) $1[i]);
PyList_SetItem($result,i,o);
}
}
%include "example.c"
When I try to build it with the following SConstruct:
import distutils.sysconfig
env = Environment(SWIGFLAGS='-python -shadow -Wall'.split(),
CPPPATH=[distutils.sysconfig.get_python_inc()],
SHLIBPREFIX="")
env.SharedLibrary('_example.so', ['example.c', 'example.i'])
$1_dim0 special variable is not populated, resulting in the following non-compilable code in example_wrap.c:
SWIGINTERN PyObject *Swig_var_foo_get(void) {
PyObject *pyobj = 0;
{
int i;
//foo, , foo_dim1
pyobj = PyList_New();
for (i = 0; i < ; i++) {
PyObject *o = PyInt_FromLong((double) foo[i]);
PyList_SetItem(pyobj,i,o);
}
}
return pyobj;
}
So clearly the typemap match has happened, but dimensionality of array is missing. What am I missing? Hard coding the dimension does works.
In general, is there any way to extend global cvar variables with swig?
$ swig -version
SWIG Version 2.0.4
Compiled with g++ [i686-pc-linux-gnu]
Configured options: +pcre
Please see http://www.swig.org for reporting bugs and further information
You're almost there with your varout typemap. You need to make two minor changes:
You need to add the size ANY to the int foo[] typemap:
%typemap(varout) int foo[ANY] {
int i;
//$1, $1_dim0, $1_dim1
$result = PyList_New($1_dim0);
for (i = 0; i < $1_dim0; i++) {
PyObject *o = PyInt_FromLong((double) $1[i]);
PyList_SetItem($result,i,o);
}
}
This makes sure your typemap is a match for arrays of (any) known size, not just equivalent to int *foo.
You need to modify example.c to make the size of foo clearer. It's legal and correct C as it stands but tricky to deduce the size of the array unless you happen to be a complete C compiler. Changing it to:
int foo[2] = {0, 1};
is sufficient to make sure that it matches the varout typemap.
With those two changes the generated code works as you'd hope:
SWIGINTERN PyObject *Swig_var_foo_get(void) {
PyObject *pyobj = 0;
{
int i;
//foo, 2, foo_dim1
pyobj = PyList_New(2);
for (i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
PyObject *o = PyInt_FromLong((double) foo[i]);
PyList_SetItem(pyobj,i,o);
}
}
return pyobj;
}
is what gets generated on my machine with those changes.
For those like me who ponders what to do with arrays of non-simple types -- here is one way to do it:
The non-simple type:
typedef struct {
int a;
float b;
} Foo;
and a global array:
extern Foo *foov[40];
%typemap(varout) Foo *foov[ANY] {
int i;
$result = PyList_New($1_dim0);
for (i = 0; i < $1_dim0; i++) {
PyObject *o = SWIG_NewPointerObj($1[i], SWIGTYPE_p_Foo, 0);
PyList_SetItem($result, i, o);
}
}
Just shared this since it took me forever to find out, and this article helped. Just needed to find out how to allocate the SWIG version of my non-simple type -- found that buried here:
http://www.swig.org/Doc2.0/Python.html#Python_nn64

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