ctypes: delay conversion from c_char_p to string

[Brendan Miller]

I have a function exposed through ctypes that returns a c_char_p.
Since I need to deallocate that c_char_p, it's inconvenient that
ctypes copies the c_char_p into a string instead of giving me the raw
pointer. I believe this will cause a memory leak, unless ctypes is
smart enough to free the string itself after the copy... which I
doubt.

Is there some way to tell ctypes to return an actual c_char_p, or is
my best bet to return a c_void_p and cast to c_char_p when I'm reading
to convert to a string?

Thanks
Brendan