Book Image

Learning Cython Programming

By : Philip Herron
Book Image

Learning Cython Programming

By: Philip Herron

Overview of this book

<p>Cython is a very powerful combination of Python and C. Using Cython, you can write Python code that calls back and forth from and to C or C++ code natively at any point. It is a language with extra syntax allowing for optional static type declarations. It is also a very popular language as it can be used for multicore programming.</p> <p>Learning Cython Programming will provide you with a detailed guide to extending your native applications in pure Python; imagine embedding a twisted web server into your native application with pure Python code. You will also learn how to get your new applications up and running by reusing Python’s extensive libraries such as Logging and Config Parser to name a few.</p> <p>With Learning Cython Programming, you will learn that writing your own Python module in C from scratch is not only hard, but is also unsafe. Cython will automatically handle all type-conversion issues as well as garbage collection on your code. You can also still write all your code in Python but have it compiled and called directly in C as if it was just another function or data.</p> <p>This book also demonstrates how you can take the open source project Tmux and extend it to add new commands directly in pure Python. With this book, you will learn everything you need to know to get up and running with Cython and how you can reuse examples in a practical way.</p>
Table of Contents (13 chapters)

About the Author

Philip Herron is an avid software engineer who focuses his passion towards compilers and virtual machine implementations. When he was first accepted to Google Summer of Code 2010, he used inspiration from Paul Biggar's PhD on optimization of dynamic languages to develop a proof of concept GCC frontend to compile Python. This project sparked his deep interest of how Python works.

After completing a consecutive year on the same project in 2011, Philip decided to apply for Cython under the Python foundation to gain a deeper appreciation of the standard Python implementation. Through this, he started leveraging the advantages of Python to control the logic in systems or even to add more high-level interfaces such as embedding Twisted web servers for REST calls to a system-level piece of software without writing any C code.

Currently Philip is employed by NYSE Euronext in Belfast Northern Ireland, working on multiprocessing systems. But he spends his evenings hacking on GCCPy, Cython, and GCC. In the past, he has worked with WANdisco as an Apache Hadoop developer and as an intern with SAP Research on cloud computing.