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emphasize that cffi is better than extension modules for portability

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Benjamin Peterson 2015-01-05 14:38:46 -06:00
parent 1418320850
commit 63b55580fb
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Doc/extending/extending.rst
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@ -20,12 +20,17 @@ source file by including the header ``"Python.h"``.
The compilation of an extension module depends on its intended use as well as on
your system setup; details are given in later chapters.
Do note that if your use case is calling C library functions or system calls,
you should consider using the :mod:`ctypes` module rather than writing custom
C code. Not only does :mod:`ctypes` let you write Python code to interface
with C code, but it is more portable between implementations of Python than
writing and compiling an extension module which typically ties you to CPython.
.. note::
The C extension interface is specific to CPython, and extension modules do
not work on other Python implementations. In many cases, it is possible to
avoid writing C extensions and preserve portability to other implementations.
For example, if your use case is calling C library functions or system calls,
you should consider using the :mod:`ctypes` module or the `cffi
<http://cffi.readthedocs.org>`_ library rather than writing custom C code.
These modules let you write Python code to interface with C code and are more
portable between implementations of Python than writing and compiling a C
extension module.
.. _extending-simpleexample: