Ctypes is included standard in Python 2.5, so it is clearly useful to
many Python users. It allows one to call library
functions defined in shared object libraries directory from
interpreted Python code. For the core of Sage
we have not found a use for this yet.
First, when implementing a basic type that needs to
be very fast, e.g., GMP integers, the entire implementation absolutely
must be compiled - writing it as a combination of Python and C
library calls will be way too slow. Second, it is often very painful
to convert Python data structures to C data structures and conversely,
and there are many opportunities for memory leaks and core dumps.
Release 2008.07.11, documentation updated on July 11, 2008.
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