Commit C source [ctypes]

[maedoc]

Cython is a largish, dev-time dependency in many cases. It would be an added convenience to commit the C sources to Git repo, also pushing them to PyPI.

[ayan-b]

Hi @maedoc,

Can you please explain a little what you mean by Commit C source?

Thanks!

[maedoc]

hi @ayan-b this was a while ago, but I meant creating simpler bindings, in particular from a build perspective. A small C++ library with a C API for using the geodesic functions, which can be used by Python via ctypes module:

#include <geodesic_xyz.hpp>
extern "C" {
  int geodesic_compute_distances(int n_vtx, int n_tri, float *vtx, int *tri, float *gdist_mat);
}

Compiling this,

g++ -o gdist_c_api.o gdist_c_api.cpp
g++ -shared gdist_c_api.o -o gdist_c_api.so

then use from Python

import ctypes
lib = ctypes.DLL('./gdist_c_api.so')
# build numpy arrays etc
lib.geodesic_compute_distances(vtx.shape[0], tri.shape[0], vtx, tri, gdist)

On all platforms, building a plain C++ library is easier than a Cython extension, so this should make builds (especially on Windows) easier. The resulting shared library can be built per platform into wheels and put on the PyPI.

[ayan-b]

@maedoc Thanks!