[capi-sig] Python to Scheme type conversion in C?

[Stefan Behnel]

Jason Baker, 31.05.2010 18:15:
> I'm working on a Python-to-mzscheme binding using mzscheme's ffi
> library (mzscheme's rough equivalent of the Python ctypes library).
> I'm looking for a way to convert Python objects into Scheme values.
> Essentially what I'm trying to do is say "Is this a Python  integer?
> Ok, convert it to a Scheme integer."  or "Is this a Python string?
> Ok, convert it into a Scheme string."  ... etc.
>
> What is the best way to do this?  My first intuition was to call
> Py*_Check to determine the type, but it turns out that's a macro that
> can't be used in non-c code.  I'm sure I could translate that into the
> appropriate C code, but that gives me a bad feeling.

Those are macros because that makes them really, really fast, especially in 
Py3. However, their definition changes between Python versions, so 
replacing them by regular C code is really not a good idea.

In general, I wouldn't try to make the wrapper too generic. You might want 
to inspect the underlying Scheme code (potentially at runtime), and infer 
the possible types (or the required conversion) from that.


> Right now, I'm
> looking for simple and easy more than efficient and complete (but I
> would also like to know what the efficient and complete approach would
> be).

Have you considered integrating this with Cython via a thin C bridge, 
instead of talking to Python's C-API directly? Without knowing anything 
about the FFI you are using here, I suspect that it likely wouldn't be a 
generic wrapper in that case. Instead, it would allow users to write 
specialised and well optimised Scheme wrappers for their specific use case. 
So far, Cython supports calling into C, C++ and Fortran, where the Fortran 
wrapper is also implemented as a C-bridge (via fwrap). A similar Scheme 
binding would allow users to take advantage of Cython's static typing 
features, so that your code wouldn't have to guess types in the first place.

Stefan