[Python-Dev] Python 3.7: remove all private C functions from the Python C API?

[Benjamin Peterson]

That seems like a good idea in abstract. However, the boundaries will
have to be delineated. Many functions beginning _Py are effectively part
of the public API even for "well-behaved" 3rd-party extensions because
they are used by magic macros. For example, _Py_Dealloc is used by
Py_DECREF.

Ideally, we would set the linkage of functions we really didn't want
used externally to "hidden".

On Sun, Sep 11, 2016, at 01:37, Victor Stinner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Currently, Python has 3 C API:
> 
> * python core API
> * regular API: subset of the core API
> * stable API (ABI?), the Py_LIMITED_API thing: subset of the regular API
> 
> For practical purpose, all functions are declared in Include/*.h.
> Basically, Python exposes "everything". There are private functions
> which are exported using PyAPI_FUNC(), whereas they should only be
> used inside Python "core". Technically, I'm not sure that we can get
> ride of PyAPI_FUNC() because the stdlib also has extensions which use
> a few private functions.
> 
> For Python 3.7, I propose that we move all these private functions in
> separated header files, maybe Include/private/ or Include/core/, and
> not export them as part of the "regular API".
> 
> The risk is that too many C extensions rely on all these tiny
> "private" functions. Maybe for performance. I don't know.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> See also the issue #26900, "Exclude the private API from the stable API":
> http://bugs.python.org/issue26900
> 
> Victor
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