realpython · sigmavirus24 · Nov 1, 2015 · Oct 27, 2015 · Oct 27, 2015 · Oct 27, 2015
diff --git a/docs/contents.rst.inc b/docs/contents.rst.inc
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ different scenarios.
   scenarios/xml
   scenarios/json
   scenarios/crypto
+   scenarios/clibs


 Shipping Great Code

diff --git a/docs/scenarios/clibs.rst b/docs/scenarios/clibs.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+Interfacing with C/C++ Libraries
+================================
+
+C Foreign Function Interface
+----------------------------
+
+`CFFI <https://cffi.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>`_ provides a simple to use
+mechanism for interfacing with C from both CPython and PyPy. It supports two
+modes: an inline ABI compatibility mode (example provided below), which allows
+you to dynamically load and run functions from executable modules (essentially
+exposing the same functionality as LoadLibrary or dlopen), and an API mode,
+which allows you to build C extension modules.
+
+ABI Interaction
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. code-block:: python
+    :linenos:
+
+    from cffi import FFI
+    ffi = FFI()
+    ffi.cdef("size_t strlen(const char*);")
+    clib = ffi.dlopen(None)
+    length = clib.strlen("String to be evaluated.")
+    # prints: 23
+    print("{}".format(length))
+
+ctypes
+------
+
+`ctypes <https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html>`_ is the de facto
+library for interfacing with C/C++ from CPython, and it provides not only
+full access to the native C interface of most major operating systems (e.g.,
+kernel32 on Windows, or libc on \*nix), but also provides support for loading
+and interfacing with dynamic libraries, such as DLLs or shared objects at
+runtime. It does bring along with it a whole host of types for interacting
+with system APIs, and allows you to rather easily define your own complex
+types, such as structs and unions, and allows you to modify things such as
+padding and alignment, if needed. It can be a bit crufty to use, but in
+conjunction with the `struct <https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/struct.html>`_
+module, you are essentially provided full control over how your data types get
+translated into something something usable by a pure C(++) method.
+
+Struct Equivalents
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+:file:`MyStruct.h`
+
+.. code-block:: c
+    :linenos:
+
+    struct my_struct {
+        int a;
+        int b;
+    };
+
+:file:`MyStruct.py`
+
+.. code-block:: python
+    :linenos:
+
+    import ctypes
+    class my_struct(ctypes.Structure):
+        _fields_ = [("a", c_int),
+                    ("b", c_int)]
+
+SWIG
+----
+
+`SWIG <http://www.swig.org>`_, though not strictly Python focused (it supports a
+large number of scripting languages), is a tool for generating bindings for
+interpreted languages from C/C++ header files. It is extremely simple to use:
+the consumer simply needs to define an interface file (detailed in the
+tutorial and documentations), include the requisite C/C++ headers, and run
+the build tool against them. While it does have some limits, (it currently
+seems to have issues with a small subset of newer C++ features, and getting
+template-heavy code to work can be a bit verbose), it provides a great deal
+of power and exposes lots of features to Python with little effort.
+Additionally, you can easily extend the bindings SWIG creates (in the
+interface file) to overload operators and built-in methods, effectively re-
+cast C++ exceptions to be catchable by Python, etc.
+
+Example: Overloading __repr__
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+:file:`MyClass.h`
+
+.. code-block:: c++
+    :linenos:
+
+    #include <string>
+    class MyClass {
+    private:
+        std::string name;
+    public:
+        std::string getName();
+    };
+
+:file:`myclass.i`
+
+.. code-block:: c++
+    :linenos:
+
+    %include "string.i"
+
+    %module myclass
+    %{
+    #include <string>
+    #include "MyClass.h"
+    %}
+
+    %extend MyClass {
+        std::string __repr__()
+        {
+            return $self->getName();
+        }
+    }
+
+    %include "MyClass.h"
+
+
+Boost.Python
+------------
+
+`Boost.Python <http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_59_0/libs/python/doc/>`_
+requires a bit more manual work to expose C++ object functionality, but
+it is capable of providing all the same features SWIG does and then some,
+to include providing wrappers to access PyObjects in C++, extracting SWIG-
+wrapper objects, and even embedding bits of Python into your C++ code.