Commit 5f3e9178 authored by scoder's avatar scoder Committed by GitHub

Merge pull request #2288 from gabrieldemarmiesse/memview_to_c

Add tutorial on how to call C function with numpy arrays.
parents 5bbeec38 de001cbb
void multiply_by_10_in_C(double arr[], unsigned int n)
{
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
arr[i] *= 10;
}
}
# distutils: sources=./C_func_file.c
# distutils: include_dirs=./
cdef extern from "C_func_file.h":
void multiply_by_10_in_C(double *, unsigned int)
import numpy as np
def multiply_by_10(arr): # 'arr' is a one-dimensional numpy array
if not arr.flags['C_CONTIGUOUS']:
arr = np.ascontiguousarray(arr) # Makes a contiguous copy of the numpy array.
cdef double[::1] arr_memview = arr
multiply_by_10_in_C(&arr_memview[0], arr_memview.shape[0])
return arr
a = np.ones(5, dtype=np.double)
print(multiply_by_10(a))
b = np.ones(10, dtype=np.double)
b = b[::2] # b is not contiguous.
print(multiply_by_10(b)) # but our function still works as expected.
.. _using_c_libraries:
******************
Using C libraries
******************
......
......@@ -396,6 +396,8 @@ like::
int [:, :, :] my_memoryview = obj
.. _c_and_fortran_contiguous_memoryviews:
C and Fortran contiguous memoryviews
------------------------------------
......@@ -691,6 +693,50 @@ reject None input straight away in the signature, which is supported in Cython
Unlike object attributes of extension classes, memoryview slices are not
initialized to None.
Pass data from a C function via pointer
=======================================
Since use of pointers in C is ubiquitous, here we give a quick example of how
to call C functions whose arguments contain pointers. Let's suppose you want to
manage an array (allocate and deallocate) with NumPy (it can also be Python arrays, or
anything that supports the buffer interface), but you want to perform computation on this
array with an external C function implemented in :file:`C_func_file.c`:
.. literalinclude:: ../../examples/memoryviews/C_func_file.c
:linenos:
This file comes with a header file called :file:`C_func_file.h` containing::
void multiply_by_10_in_C(double arr[], unsigned int n);
where ``arr`` points to the array and ``n`` is its size.
You can call the function in a Cython file in the following way:
.. literalinclude:: ../../examples/memoryviews/memview_to_c.pyx
:linenos:
Several things to note:
- ``::1`` requests a C contiguous view, and fails if the buffer is not C contiguous.
See :ref:`c_and_fortran_contiguous_memoryviews`.
- ``&arr_memview[0]`` can be understood as 'the adress of the first element of the
memoryview'. For contiguous arrays, this is equivalent to the
start address of the flat memory buffer.
- ``arr_memview.shape[0]`` could have been replaced by ``arr_memview.size``,
``arr.shape[0]`` or ``arr.size``. But ``arr_memview.shape[0]`` is more efficient
because it doesn't require any Python interaction.
- ``multiply_by_10`` will perform computation in-place if the array passed is contiguous,
and will return a new numpy array if ``arr`` is not contiguous.
- If you are using Python arrays instead of numpy arrays, you don't need to check
if the data is stored contiguously as this is always the case. See :ref:`array-array`.
This way, you can call the C function similar to a normal Python function,
and leave all the memory management and cleanup to NumPy arrays and Python's
object handling. For the details of how to compile and
call functions in C files, see :ref:`using_c_libraries`.
.. _GIL: http://docs.python.org/dev/glossary.html#term-global-interpreter-lock
.. _new style buffers: http://docs.python.org/c-api/buffer.html
.. _pep 3118: http://www.python.org/peps/pep-3118.html
......
Markdown is supported
0%
or
You are about to add 0 people to the discussion. Proceed with caution.
Finish editing this message first!
Please register or to comment