Purpose is to centralize reusable code.
Here is the list of existing modules:
- load_native_module
PyToolBox is a standard distutils package. To install it:
$ python setup.py install
Use the configure script to reference tools and paths if not defined in standard location: $ ./configure
Documentation available via ./configure --help
Then execute the command make test to build and run tests.
Python prevents loading a module more than once. But sometimes, you really need to deal with several instances of the same module.
with a pure Python module, it's pretty easy:
def load_module(name):
assert(isinstance(name, str))
sys.modules.pop(name, None)
__import__(name)
But when it comes to import native libraries, it's a different story. It turns out a Python module's hash key is the absolute path to that module. So to get n instances of the same module, a workaround is to have n versions of the files on your filesystem in different locations.
This is what this function is doing : each time a new instance of a module is asked, it copies both Python module and its shared library in a fresh temporary directory and load it as a new module.
load_native_library can not load directly the shared library. You need to write
an intermediate layer module. If you are using Swig, there is already one.
from load_native_module import *
with load_native_module('a_swig_generated_module') as m:
# do stuff
# [...]
# At this point, the temporary directory is deleted.
If a module submitted to load_native_module has not been loaded yet,
the function uses the `classic' module load. But things will get dirty
next time :)
On linux only:
- Swig 1.3 and Python 2.6
- Swig 2.0.4 and Python 2.7.1