Pyrex Language
Pyrex LanguageThe fundamental nature of Pyrex can be summed up as follows: Pyrex is PythonLanguage with CeeLanguage data types.
Pyrex is Python: Almost any piece of Python code is also valid Pyrex code. (There are a few limitations, but this approximation will serve for now.) The Pyrex compiler will convert it into C code which makes equivalent calls to the Python/C API. In this respect, Pyrex is similar to the former Python2C project (to which I would supply a reference except that it no longer seems to exist)....with C data types. But Pyrex is much more than that, because parameters and variables can be declared to have C data types. Code which manipulates Python values and C values can be freely intermixed, with conversions occurring automatically wherever possible. Reference count maintenance and error checking of Python operations is also automatic, and the full power of Python's exception handling facilities, including the try-except and try-finally statements, is available to you -- even in the midst of manipulating C data.
Pyrex is a language specially designed for writing Python extension modules. It's designed to bridge the gap between the nice, high-level, easy-to-use world of Python and the messy, low-level world of C.
Pyrex deals with the basic types just as easily as the SimplifiedWrapperAndInterfaceGenerator, but it also lets you write code to convert between arbitrary Python data structures and arbitrary C data structures, in a simple and natural way, without knowing anything about the CeePython? API. That's right -- nothing at all! Nor do you have to worry about reference counting or error checking -- it's all taken care of automatically, behind the scenes, just as it is in interpreted Python code. And what's more, Pyrex lets you define new built-in Python types just as easily as you can define new classes in Python.
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(last edited January 2, 2006)
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