Interaction with C/C++

Technically, f2py can also wrap a C code for us, but there are more efficient ways to perform this task. For instance, if we need to interface a very large library of C functions, the preferred method for doing this is Simplified Wrapper and Interface Generator (SWIG) (http://www.swig.org/). To wrap C++ code, depending on the features required and the method of interacting with Python, we have several methods such as SWIG or f2py again, but also PyCXX, Boost.Python, Cython, or the SciPy module: weave. When C compilers are not available (and thus linking extensive libraries is not possible in the usual way), we use ctypes. Whenever we will use NumPy/SciPy code, and want fast solutions to our wrapping/binding, the two most common ways to interact with C/C++ are usually through the Python/C API and weave packages.

All the methods briefly enumerated here would require an entire monograph to describe, at length, the methodology of binding the nuisances of the wrapping,...