Hello,

On Feb 16, 2008 9:14 PM, dmitrey dmitrey.kroshko@scipy.org wrote:

hi all, I intend to connect some C code to Python for some my purposes. What is the best software for the aim? Is it numpy.ctypes or swig or something else? IIRC ctypes are present in Python since v2.5, so it's ok to use just ctypes, not numpy.ctypes, or some difference is present?

I would definitely recommend ctypes. numpy.ctypes is just some extra code to make it easier to use NumPy arrays with ctypes. It's not a standalone thing.

There are some example of what you can do with the ctypes support in NumPy here:

http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Ctypes

Look for ndpointer.

Another one question: if I'll translate a fortran code to C via f2c, which % of speed down should I expect (in average, using gfortran and gcc)? Afaik it contains operations with sparse matrices.

Depending on what you want to do exactly, you might consider wrapping the Fortran code using f2py instead of translating it to C. You could also build the Fortran code as a shared library and wrap it using ctypes.

Regards,

Albert