[pypy-dev] cppyy: C++ bindings for PyPy

[Maciej Fijalkowski]

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 7:08 AM, <wlavrijsen at lbl.gov> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> as detailed in a couple of blog posts in the past (*), for some time now we
> have been working on making C++ bindings through the Reflex package
> available
> on PyPy, in the form of the "cppyy" module. Software is never done, and
> that
> is true also in this case, but it has reached a level of maturity at which
> it
> can be said to be usable. Initial docs are now up on:
>
>   http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/**cppyy.html<http://doc.pypy.org/en/latest/cppyy.html>
>
> with instructions on how to setup the reflex-support branch and how to test
> it out. The documentation will be updated with more advanced and detailed
> topics in the next couple of weeks or so.
>
> There's a sizable (non-PyPy) set of unit tests that still need to be worked
> through, thus development will steadily continue at its current pace.
> Still,
> if you find that cppyy almost works for you except for a particular
> feature,
> feel free to ask for it to be prioritized.
>
> The biggest obstacle for most people (that are not in the field of HEP)
> will
> be the current set of dependencies. Although the dependency set for cppyy
> is
> really only Reflex, which could be distributed separately, for the CPython
> equivalent code, the dependency set is a large portion of the ROOT class
> library. The medium-term plan then is to use Cling, which is based on CLang
> from llvm (http://root.cern.ch/drupal/**content/cling<http://root.cern.ch/drupal/content/cling>)
> as the back-end. For
> this, there will be a PyCling on CPython, and all as stand-alone projects
> to
> remove the large dependency set.
>
> More interesting though, having Cling on the back of the bindings allows
> far more advanced features, such as dynamic setup of callbacks and cross
> language inheritance to put Python code into C++ frameworks. This has been
> prototyped successfully in Clings predecessor (CINT), but would be very
> hard
> to do in Reflex.
>
> Of course, an important reason for pushing this code out to the community
> somewhat early, is that it allows anyone so interested to start hacking on
> it and help shape it!
>
> Best regards,
>           Wim
>
> (*) http://morepypy.blogspot.com/**2011/08/wrapping-c-libraries-**
> with-reflection.html<http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2011/08/wrapping-c-libraries-with-reflection.html>
>    http://morepypy.blogspot.com/**2010/07/cern-sprint-report-**
> wrapping-c-libraries.html<http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2010/07/cern-sprint-report-wrapping-c-libraries.html>
> --
> WLavrijsen at lbl.gov    --    +1 (510) 486 6411    --    www.lavrijsen.net
> ______________________________**_________________
> pypy-dev mailing list
> pypy-dev at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/**mailman/listinfo/pypy-dev<http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pypy-dev>
>

Quick question - if it's mature, why not merge it to default? I presume it
should be turned off, since there is a sizeable dependency, but still
having it in default can be good.

Cheers,
fijal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pypy-dev/attachments/20120423/35b77f49/attachment-0001.html>