[C++-sig] Retrieving lvalues using custom converters (numpy 1-D converters attached)
Ravi
lists_ravi at lavabit.com
Thu Oct 2 21:54:46 CEST 2008
On Thursday 02 October 2008 15:22:32 Neal Becker wrote:
> Do I understand correctly, that when returning a ublas::vector to python,
> lifetime management is not provided? That is, nothing will ever destruct
> the ublas::vector, resulting in a memory leak?
Yes. However, you can use any of the standard return value policies from
boost.python to manage the lifetime of an array returned to python; if you use
copy_const_reference and return the array by value from your function, any
decent optimizing compiler would optimize away the copy.
There are 4 main use cases:
1. A python array is passed into your function (and perhaps you modify it); no
lifetime management is needed here.
2. A C++ array is exposed as a member of some other class; the lifetime of the
python member is tied to the lifetime of the C++ object and the usual caveats
apply.
3. A C++ array is returned from a function by reference; in this case, the
usual return value policies can be used to manage the Python object lifetime.
4. A C++ array is returned from a function by value; this case is the same as
the preceding one.
Note that there is no use case in which a python array is passed back out of a
C++ function. The rationale is that python arrays can be created only in
python in which case you already have a reference in python. If you create a
python array in C++, you are on your own. In that case, it is not terribly
hard to use the provided converter to get a numpy ublas array; you could
simply write the trivial to_python converter using the provided get_array()
function.
Regards,
Ravi
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