Dlls

[Mike C. Fletcher]

Jason Ward wrote:
> Hi. I am interested to know why python can't access DLL files directly.
> It seems to me that because python can't access DLL's directly we have to
> waste our time and write wrappers around libraries that have already 
> been written.
>  
> So if the python developers were to implement say this.
>  
> import MYDLL.dll
>  
> Then we would be able to do everything with that library that we can 
> do in other languages.
>  
> For eg. I want to use PyOpenGL. But the problem is the library hasn't 
> got all the opengl functions implemented.
> So I can either develop quickly with an incomplete library or develop 
> slowly in assembler.
> I mean really, in asm we just call the dll function directly.
>  
> Why must python be different?
Hi again, Jason,

As we pointed out to you, ctypes *does* allow you to just load the DLL 
and start calling functions.  In fact, that's how development tends to 
happen in the ctypes implementation.  Someone just loads the DLL, hacks 
up a demo, I look at it and factor their code into the code-base.  If 
there's some function missing that you need, do something like this:

    from OpenGL.platform import GL
    GL.myFunction( myParameter, myOtherParameter )

and if the parameters are of simple types, it will often "just work".  
If you want to pass arrays or similar data-types you'll need to make 
them ctypes arrays or pointers to use those "raw" functions, but they 
should work perfectly well.  That is, you have to pass the right 
data-type, but then you'd have to do that in assembler too.

Have fun,
Mike

-- 
________________________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://www.vrplumber.com
  http://blog.vrplumber.com