Calling C functions
====================

This tutorial describes shortly what you need to know in order to call
C library functions from Cython code.  For a longer and more
comprehensive tutorial about using external C libraries, wrapping them
and handling errors, see :doc:`clibraries`.

For simplicity, let's start with a function from the standard C
library.  This does not add any dependencies to your code, and it has
the additional advantage that Cython already defines many such
functions for you. So you can just cimport and use them.

For example, let's say you need a low-level way to parse a number from
a ``char*`` value.  You could use the ``atoi()`` function, as defined
by the ``stdlib.h`` header file.  This can be done as follows::

  from libc.stdlib cimport atoi

  cdef parse_charptr_to_py_int(char* s):
      assert s is not NULL, "byte string value is NULL"
      return atoi(s)   # note: atoi() has no error detection!

You can find a complete list of these standard cimport files in
Cython's source package ``Cython/Includes/``.  It also has a complete
set of declarations for CPython's C-API.  For example, to test at C
compilation time which CPython version your code is being compiled
with, you can do this::

  from cpython.version cimport PY_VERSION_HEX

  print PY_VERSION_HEX >= 0x030200F0 # Python version >= 3.2 final

Cython also provides declarations for the C math library::

  from libc.math cimport sin

  cdef double f(double x):
      return sin(x*x)


Dynamic linking
---------------

The libc math library is special in that it is not linked by default
on some Unix-like systems, such as Linux. In addition to cimporting the
declarations, you must configure your build system to link against the
shared library ``m``.  For distutils, it is enough to add it to the
``libraries`` parameter of the ``Extension()`` setup::

  from distutils.core import setup
  from distutils.extension import Extension
  from Cython.Distutils import build_ext

  ext_modules=[ 
      Extension("demo",
                ["demo.pyx"], 
                libraries=["m"]) # Unix-like specific
  ]

  setup(
    name = "Demos",
    cmdclass = {"build_ext": build_ext},
    ext_modules = ext_modules
  )


External declarations
---------------------

If you want to access C code for which Cython does not provide a ready
to use declaration, you must declare them yourself.  For example, the
above ``sin()`` function is defined as follows::

  cdef extern from "math.h":
      double sin(double x)

This declares the ``sin()`` function in a way that makes it available
to Cython code and instructs Cython to generate C code that includes
the ``math.h`` header file.  The C compiler will see the original
declaration in ``math.h`` at compile time, but Cython does not parse
"math.h" and requires a separate definition.

Just like the ``sin()`` function from the math library, it is possible
to declare and call into any C library as long as the module that
Cython generates is properly linked against the shared or static
library.


Naming parameters
-----------------

Both C and Cython support signature declarations without parameter
names like this::

  cdef extern from "string.h":
      char* strstr(const char*, const char*)

However, this prevents Cython code from calling it with keyword
arguments (supported since Cython 0.19).  It is therefore preferable
to write the declaration like this instead::

  cdef extern from "string.h":
      char* strstr(const char *haystack, const char *needle)

You can now make it clear which of the two arguments does what in
your call, thus avoiding any ambiguities and often making your code
more readable::

  cdef char* data = "hfvcakdfagbcffvschvxcdfgccbcfhvgcsnfxjh"

  pos = strstr(needle='akd', haystack=data)
  print pos != NULL

Note that changing existing parameter names later is a backwards
incompatible API modification, just as for Python code.  Thus, if
you provide your own declarations for external C or C++ functions,
it is usually worth the additional bit of effort to choose the
names of their arguments well.