[Boost-build] Boost Python and ctypes

From: Tristam MacDonald (swiftcoder_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-02-22 11:01:51

I am trying to bridge two libraries, one a C library bound into python using
ctypes, and the other a C++ library using Boost Python.
In the C++ library, I have a class similar to the following, with a member
function that returns a pointer to an internal buffer.

struct Test
{
float data[16];

float *get_data() {return data;}
}

I have wrapped this in a seeming logical way:

BOOST_MODULE(test) {
class_<Test>("Test")
.def("get_data", &Test::get_data, return_value_policy< return_by_value >();
}

Which suffices to retrieve a "float *" instance from Python. However, I need
to pass this pointer to a ctypes-bound function:

void some_function(float *);

I can call this function from python without any trouble, using a ctypes
created buffer:

buffer = (c_float * 16)
some_function(buffer)

However, when I attempt to pass the result of get_data() into this function,
ctypes causes an error because Boost Python's "float *" type does not match
ctypes' POINTER(c_float) type. Equally, ctypes' cast() function doesn't work
to coerce the pointer type, because it doesn't recognise the "float *" type
either.

Does anyone have a workaround to coerce these types (which each contain the
same underlying pointer) together?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,

- Tristam