Trying to pass sys.argv as (int argc, char **argv) using ctypes
eryk sun
eryksun at gmail.com
Mon Jun 6 09:47:11 EDT 2016
On Mon, Jun 6, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Mark Summerfield <list at qtrac.plus.com> wrote:
>
> Lib = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary("libthing")
Use ctypes.CDLL('libthing'). It's simpler, plus it's the only way to
pass the handle, mode, and use_errno parameters if you need them.
> LibOpen.restype = ctypes.c_int
This line isn't required because c_int is the default result type.
> argc = ctypes.c_int(len(sys.argv))
ctypes automatically converts integer arguments that are passed by
value. You only need to create a c_int when you're passing by
reference.
> Args = ctypes.c_char_p * len(sys.argv)
The argv array in ANSI C should have length `argc + 1`. There's a
final null terminator, even though it's redundant given the argc
count.
> args = Args(*[ctypes.c_char_p(arg.encode("utf-8"))
> for arg in sys.argv])
There's no need to create a list just to unpack it. You can use a for
loop to populate the array directly. Also, you don't have to manually
instantiate c_char_p instances when storing the elements of a c_char_p
array; the base type's getfunc will convert Python byte strings.
Also, since the function signature isn't `const char **`, you should
use ctypes.create_string_buffer just in case the function expects to
be able to modify the argv strings. This requires switching from using
c_char_p to a more generic POINTER(c_char).
> argv = ctypes.pointer(args)
> LibOpen(argc, ctypes.byref(argv))
C array arguments are passed as a pointer to the first element. You
don't have to manually create a pointer. And if you do, certainly you
shouldn't pass it by reference. That mistakenly passes a pointer to
the pointer to the first element of the argv array (which is a pointer
to the first character in the first string argument). Naturally you
get the following error:
> expected LP_c_char_p instance instead of pointer to LP_c_char_p_Array_1
Due to limitations in ctypes you also get the following error when you
pass the pointer by value:
> expected LP_c_char_p instance instead of LP_c_char_p_Array_1
Only passing the array directly is special cased for this to work.
Try the following code:
import sys
import ctypes
lib = ctypes.CDLL('libthing')
LP_c_char = ctypes.POINTER(ctypes.c_char)
LP_LP_c_char = ctypes.POINTER(LP_c_char)
lib.LibOpen.argtypes = (ctypes.c_int, # argc
LP_LP_c_char) # argv
argc = len(sys.argv)
argv = (LP_c_char * (argc + 1))()
for i, arg in enumerate(sys.argv):
enc_arg = arg.encode('utf-8')
argv[i] = ctypes.create_string_buffer(enc_arg)
lib.LibOpen(argc, argv)
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