The Python/C API

Release 3.14.0a7

Guido van Rossum and the Python development team

April 27, 2025

Python Software Foundation

Email: [email protected]
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 3
1.1 Language version compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Coding standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Include Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Useful macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Objects, Types and Reference Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5.1 Reference Counts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.2 Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6 Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.7 Embedding Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.8 Debugging Builds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2 C API Stability 15
2.1 Unstable C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Stable Application Binary Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.1 Limited C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Stable ABI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.3 Limited API Scope and Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.4 Limited API Caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Platform Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 Contents of Limited API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3 The Very High Level Layer 43

4 Reference Counting 47

5 Exception Handling 51
5.1 Printing and clearing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.2 Raising exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.3 Issuing warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.4 Querying the error indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.5 Signal Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.6 Exception Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.7 Exception Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.8 Unicode Exception Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.9 Recursion Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.10 Standard Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.11 Standard Warning Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

6 Utilities 67
6.1 Operating System Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
6.2 System Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
6.3 Process Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.4 Importing Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.5 Data marshalling support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

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 6.6 Parsing arguments and building values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.6.1 Parsing arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.6.2 Building values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.7 String conversion and formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.8 PyHash API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.9 Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
6.10 Codec registry and support functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
6.10.1 Codec lookup API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.10.2 Registry API for Unicode encoding error handlers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.11 PyTime C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.11.1 Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.11.2 Clock Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
6.11.3 Raw Clock Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.11.4 Conversion functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6.12 Support for Perf Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

7 Abstract Objects Layer 95

7.1 Object Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.2 Call Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.2.1 The tp_call Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.2.2 The Vectorcall Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.2.3 Object Calling API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.2.4 Call Support API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.3 Number Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.4 Sequence Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.5 Mapping Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.6 Iterator Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.7 Buffer Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.7.1 Buffer structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.7.2 Buffer request types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.7.3 Complex arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
7.7.4 Buffer-related functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

8 Concrete Objects Layer 123

8.1 Fundamental Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.1.1 Type Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
8.1.2 The None Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.2 Numeric Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.2.1 Integer Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.2.2 Boolean Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.2.3 Floating-Point Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.2.4 Complex Number Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.3 Sequence Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.3.1 Bytes Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.3.2 Byte Array Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.3.3 Unicode Objects and Codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.3.4 Tuple Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.3.5 Struct Sequence Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
8.3.6 List Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.4 Container Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.4.1 Dictionary Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
8.4.2 Set Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
8.5 Function Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.5.1 Function Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
8.5.2 Instance Method Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8.5.3 Method Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
8.5.4 Cell Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
8.5.5 Code Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

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 8.5.6 Extra information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
8.6 Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.6.1 File Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
8.6.2 Module Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
8.6.3 Iterator Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
8.6.4 Descriptor Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.6.5 Slice Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
8.6.6 MemoryView objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.6.7 Weak Reference Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8.6.8 Capsules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
8.6.9 Frame Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
8.6.10 Generator Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
8.6.11 Coroutine Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
8.6.12 Context Variables Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
8.6.13 DateTime Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
8.6.14 Objects for Type Hinting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

9 Initialization, Finalization, and Threads 213

9.1 Before Python Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
9.2 Global configuration variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
9.3 Initializing and finalizing the interpreter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
9.4 Process-wide parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
9.5 Thread State and the Global Interpreter Lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
9.5.1 Detaching the thread state from extension code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
9.5.2 Non-Python created threads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
9.5.3 Cautions about fork() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.5.4 Cautions regarding runtime finalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.5.5 High-level API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
9.5.6 Low-level API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
9.6 Sub-interpreter support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
9.6.1 A Per-Interpreter GIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
9.6.2 Bugs and caveats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
9.7 Asynchronous Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
9.8 Profiling and Tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
9.9 Reference tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
9.10 Advanced Debugger Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.11 Thread Local Storage Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.11.1 Thread Specific Storage (TSS) API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
9.11.2 Thread Local Storage (TLS) API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
9.12 Synchronization Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
9.12.1 Python Critical Section API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

10 Python Initialization Configuration 243

10.1 PyInitConfig C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
10.1.1 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
10.1.2 Create Config . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
10.1.3 Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
10.1.4 Get Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
10.1.5 Set Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
10.1.6 Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
10.1.7 Initialize Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.2 Configuration Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
10.3 Runtime Python configuration API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
10.4 PyConfig C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
10.4.1 Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
10.4.2 PyWideStringList . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
10.4.3 PyStatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
10.4.4 PyPreConfig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

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 10.4.5 Preinitialize Python with PyPreConfig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
10.4.6 PyConfig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
10.4.7 Initialization with PyConfig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
10.4.8 Isolated Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
10.4.9 Python Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
10.4.10 Python Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
10.5 Py_GetArgcArgv() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
10.6 Delaying main module execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

11 Memory Management 271

11.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
11.2 Allocator Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
11.3 Raw Memory Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
11.4 Memory Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
11.5 Object allocators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
11.6 Default Memory Allocators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
11.7 Customize Memory Allocators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
11.8 Debug hooks on the Python memory allocators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
11.9 The pymalloc allocator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.9.1 Customize pymalloc Arena Allocator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.10 The mimalloc allocator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.11 tracemalloc C API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
11.12 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

12 Object Implementation Support 281

12.1 Allocating Objects on the Heap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
12.2 Common Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
12.2.1 Base object types and macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
12.2.2 Implementing functions and methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
12.2.3 Accessing attributes of extension types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
12.3 Type Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
12.3.1 Quick Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
12.3.2 PyTypeObject Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
12.3.3 PyObject Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
12.3.4 PyVarObject Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
12.3.5 PyTypeObject Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
12.3.6 Static Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
12.3.7 Heap Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
12.3.8 Number Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
12.3.9 Mapping Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
12.3.10 Sequence Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
12.3.11 Buffer Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
12.3.12 Async Object Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
12.3.13 Slot Type typedefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
12.3.14 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
12.4 Supporting Cyclic Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
12.4.1 Controlling the Garbage Collector State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
12.4.2 Querying Garbage Collector State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

13 API and ABI Versioning 331

13.1 Build-time version constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
13.2 Run-time version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
13.3 Bit-packing macros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

14 Monitoring C API 333

15 Generating Execution Events 335

15.1 Managing the Monitoring State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

iv
A Glossary 339

B About this documentation 357

B.1 Contributors to the Python documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

C History and License 359

C.1 History of the software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
C.2 Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
C.2.1 PYTHON SOFTWARE FOUNDATION LICENSE VERSION 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
C.2.2 BEOPEN.COM LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
C.2.3 CNRI LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 1.6.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
C.2.4 CWI LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 0.9.0 THROUGH 1.2 . . . . . . . . . . 362
C.2.5 ZERO-CLAUSE BSD LICENSE FOR CODE IN THE PYTHON DOCUMENTATION . 363
C.3 Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
C.3.1 Mersenne Twister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
C.3.2 Sockets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
C.3.3 Asynchronous socket services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
C.3.4 Cookie management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
C.3.5 Execution tracing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
C.3.6 UUencode and UUdecode functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
C.3.7 XML Remote Procedure Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
C.3.8 test_epoll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
C.3.9 Select kqueue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
C.3.10 SipHash24 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
C.3.11 strtod and dtoa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
C.3.12 OpenSSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
C.3.13 expat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
C.3.14 libffi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
C.3.15 zlib . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
C.3.16 cfuhash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
C.3.17 libmpdec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
C.3.18 W3C C14N test suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
C.3.19 mimalloc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
C.3.20 asyncio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
C.3.21 Global Unbounded Sequences (GUS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

D Copyright 379

Index 381

v
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This manual documents the API used by C and C++ programmers who want to write extension modules or embed
Python. It is a companion to extending-index, which describes the general principles of extension writing but does
not document the API functions in detail.

CONTENTS 1
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2 CONTENTS
 CHAPTER

ONE

INTRODUCTION

The Application Programmer’s Interface to Python gives C and C++ programmers access to the Python interpreter
at a variety of levels. The API is equally usable from C++, but for brevity it is generally referred to as the Python/C
API. There are two fundamentally different reasons for using the Python/C API. The first reason is to write extension
modules for specific purposes; these are C modules that extend the Python interpreter. This is probably the most
common use. The second reason is to use Python as a component in a larger application; this technique is generally
referred to as embedding Python in an application.
Writing an extension module is a relatively well-understood process, where a “cookbook” approach works well. There
are several tools that automate the process to some extent. While people have embedded Python in other applications
since its early existence, the process of embedding Python is less straightforward than writing an extension.
Many API functions are useful independent of whether you’re embedding or extending Python; moreover, most
applications that embed Python will need to provide a custom extension as well, so it’s probably a good idea to
become familiar with writing an extension before attempting to embed Python in a real application.

1.1 Language version compatibility

Python’s C API is compatible with C11 and C++11 versions of C and C++.
This is a lower limit: the C API does not require features from later C/C++ versions. You do not need to enable your
compiler’s “c11 mode”.

1.2 Coding standards

If you’re writing C code for inclusion in CPython, you must follow the guidelines and standards defined in PEP 7.
These guidelines apply regardless of the version of Python you are contributing to. Following these conventions is
not necessary for your own third party extension modules, unless you eventually expect to contribute them to Python.

1.3 Include Files

All function, type and macro definitions needed to use the Python/C API are included in your code by the following
line:

#define PY_SSIZE_T_CLEAN
#include <Python.h>

This implies inclusion of the following standard headers: <stdio.h>, <string.h>, <errno.h>, <limits.h>,
<assert.h> and <stdlib.h> (if available).

® Note

Since Python may define some pre-processor definitions which affect the standard headers on some systems, you
must include Python.h before any standard headers are included.

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It is recommended to always define PY_SSIZE_T_CLEAN before including Python.h. See Parsing arguments
and building values for a description of this macro.

All user visible names defined by Python.h (except those defined by the included standard headers) have one of the
prefixes Py or _Py. Names beginning with _Py are for internal use by the Python implementation and should not be
used by extension writers. Structure member names do not have a reserved prefix.

® Note

User code should never define names that begin with Py or _Py. This confuses the reader, and jeopardizes the
portability of the user code to future Python versions, which may define additional names beginning with one of
these prefixes.

The header files are typically installed with Python. On Unix, these are located in the directories prefix/include/
pythonversion/ and exec_prefix/include/pythonversion/, where prefix and exec_prefix are
defined by the corresponding parameters to Python’s configure script and version is '%d.%d' % sys.
version_info[:2]. On Windows, the headers are installed in prefix/include, where prefix is the installa-
tion directory specified to the installer.
To include the headers, place both directories (if different) on your compiler’s search path for includes. Do not place
the parent directories on the search path and then use #include <pythonX.Y/Python.h>; this will break on
multi-platform builds since the platform independent headers under prefix include the platform specific headers
from exec_prefix.
C++ users should note that although the API is defined entirely using C, the header files properly declare the entry
points to be extern "C". As a result, there is no need to do anything special to use the API from C++.

1.4 Useful macros

Several useful macros are defined in the Python header files. Many are defined closer to where they are useful (e.g.
Py_RETURN_NONE). Others of a more general utility are defined here. This is not necessarily a complete listing.

PyMODINIT_FUNC
Declare an extension module PyInit initialization function. The function return type is PyObject*. The
macro declares any special linkage declarations required by the platform, and for C++ declares the function as
extern "C".

The initialization function must be named PyInit_name, where name is the name of the module, and should
be the only non-static item defined in the module file. Example:

static struct PyModuleDef spam_module = {

PyModuleDef_HEAD_INIT,
.m_name = "spam",
...
};

PyMODINIT_FUNC
PyInit_spam(void)
{
return PyModule_Create(&spam_module);
}

Py_ABS(x)
Return the absolute value of x.
Added in version 3.3.

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Py_ALWAYS_INLINE
Ask the compiler to always inline a static inline function. The compiler can ignore it and decide to not inline
the function.
It can be used to inline performance critical static inline functions when building Python in debug mode with
function inlining disabled. For example, MSC disables function inlining when building in debug mode.
Marking blindly a static inline function with Py_ALWAYS_INLINE can result in worse performances (due
to increased code size for example). The compiler is usually smarter than the developer for the cost/benefit
analysis.
If Python is built in debug mode (if the Py_DEBUG macro is defined), the Py_ALWAYS_INLINE macro does
nothing.
It must be specified before the function return type. Usage:

static inline Py_ALWAYS_INLINE int random(void) { return 4; }

Added in version 3.11.

Py_CHARMASK(c)
Argument must be a character or an integer in the range [-128, 127] or [0, 255]. This macro returns c cast to
an unsigned char.
Py_DEPRECATED(version)
Use this for deprecated declarations. The macro must be placed before the symbol name.
Example:

Py_DEPRECATED(3.8) PyAPI_FUNC(int) Py_OldFunction(void);

Changed in version 3.8: MSVC support was added.

Py_GETENV(s)
Like getenv(s), but returns NULL if -E was passed on the command line (see PyConfig.
use_environment).

Py_MAX(x, y)
Return the maximum value between x and y.
Added in version 3.3.
Py_MEMBER_SIZE(type, member)
Return the size of a structure (type) member in bytes.
Added in version 3.6.
Py_MIN(x, y)
Return the minimum value between x and y.
Added in version 3.3.
Py_NO_INLINE
Disable inlining on a function. For example, it reduces the C stack consumption: useful on LTO+PGO builds
which heavily inline code (see bpo-33720).
Usage:

Py_NO_INLINE static int random(void) { return 4; }

Added in version 3.11.

Py_STRINGIFY(x)
Convert x to a C string. E.g. Py_STRINGIFY(123) returns "123".
Added in version 3.4.

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Py_UNREACHABLE()
Use this when you have a code path that cannot be reached by design. For example, in the default: clause
in a switch statement for which all possible values are covered in case statements. Use this in places where
you might be tempted to put an assert(0) or abort() call.
In release mode, the macro helps the compiler to optimize the code, and avoids a warning about unreachable
code. For example, the macro is implemented with __builtin_unreachable() on GCC in release mode.
A use for Py_UNREACHABLE() is following a call a function that never returns but that is not declared
_Py_NO_RETURN.

If a code path is very unlikely code but can be reached under exceptional case, this macro must not be used.
For example, under low memory condition or if a system call returns a value out of the expected range. In this
case, it’s better to report the error to the caller. If the error cannot be reported to caller, Py_FatalError()
can be used.
Added in version 3.7.
Py_UNUSED(arg)
Use this for unused arguments in a function definition to silence compiler warnings. Example: int func(int
a, int Py_UNUSED(b)) { return a; }.
Added in version 3.4.
PyDoc_STRVAR(name, str)
Creates a variable with name name that can be used in docstrings. If Python is built without docstrings, the
value will be empty.
Use PyDoc_STRVAR for docstrings to support building Python without docstrings, as specified in PEP 7.
Example:

PyDoc_STRVAR(pop_doc, "Remove and return the rightmost element.");

static PyMethodDef deque_methods[] = {

// ...
{"pop", (PyCFunction)deque_pop, METH_NOARGS, pop_doc},
// ...
}

PyDoc_STR(str)
Creates a docstring for the given input string or an empty string if docstrings are disabled.
Use PyDoc_STR in specifying docstrings to support building Python without docstrings, as specified in PEP
7.
Example:

static PyMethodDef pysqlite_row_methods[] = {

{"keys", (PyCFunction)pysqlite_row_keys, METH_NOARGS,
PyDoc_STR("Returns the keys of the row.")},
{NULL, NULL}
};

1.5 Objects, Types and Reference Counts

Most Python/C API functions have one or more arguments as well as a return value of type PyObject*. This type
is a pointer to an opaque data type representing an arbitrary Python object. Since all Python object types are treated
the same way by the Python language in most situations (e.g., assignments, scope rules, and argument passing), it
is only fitting that they should be represented by a single C type. Almost all Python objects live on the heap: you
never declare an automatic or static variable of type PyObject, only pointer variables of type PyObject* can be

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declared. The sole exception are the type objects; since these must never be deallocated, they are typically static
PyTypeObject objects.

All Python objects (even Python integers) have a type and a reference count. An object’s type determines what kind
of object it is (e.g., an integer, a list, or a user-defined function; there are many more as explained in types). For each
of the well-known types there is a macro to check whether an object is of that type; for instance, PyList_Check(a)
is true if (and only if) the object pointed to by a is a Python list.

1.5.1 Reference Counts

The reference count is important because today’s computers have a finite (and often severely limited) memory size;
it counts how many different places there are that have a strong reference to an object. Such a place could be another
object, or a global (or static) C variable, or a local variable in some C function. When the last strong reference to an
object is released (i.e. its reference count becomes zero), the object is deallocated. If it contains references to other
objects, those references are released. Those other objects may be deallocated in turn, if there are no more references
to them, and so on. (There’s an obvious problem with objects that reference each other here; for now, the solution is
“don’t do that.”)
Reference counts are always manipulated explicitly. The normal way is to use the macro Py_INCREF() to take a new
reference to an object (i.e. increment its reference count by one), and Py_DECREF() to release that reference (i.e.
decrement the reference count by one). The Py_DECREF() macro is considerably more complex than the incref one,
since it must check whether the reference count becomes zero and then cause the object’s deallocator to be called. The
deallocator is a function pointer contained in the object’s type structure. The type-specific deallocator takes care of
releasing references for other objects contained in the object if this is a compound object type, such as a list, as well as
performing any additional finalization that’s needed. There’s no chance that the reference count can overflow; at least
as many bits are used to hold the reference count as there are distinct memory locations in virtual memory (assuming
sizeof(Py_ssize_t) >= sizeof(void*)). Thus, the reference count increment is a simple operation.

It is not necessary to hold a strong reference (i.e. increment the reference count) for every local variable that contains
a pointer to an object. In theory, the object’s reference count goes up by one when the variable is made to point to
it and it goes down by one when the variable goes out of scope. However, these two cancel each other out, so at the
end the reference count hasn’t changed. The only real reason to use the reference count is to prevent the object from
being deallocated as long as our variable is pointing to it. If we know that there is at least one other reference to the
object that lives at least as long as our variable, there is no need to take a new strong reference (i.e. increment the
reference count) temporarily. An important situation where this arises is in objects that are passed as arguments to
C functions in an extension module that are called from Python; the call mechanism guarantees to hold a reference
to every argument for the duration of the call.
However, a common pitfall is to extract an object from a list and hold on to it for a while without taking a new
reference. Some other operation might conceivably remove the object from the list, releasing that reference, and
possibly deallocating it. The real danger is that innocent-looking operations may invoke arbitrary Python code which
could do this; there is a code path which allows control to flow back to the user from a Py_DECREF(), so almost any
operation is potentially dangerous.
A safe approach is to always use the generic operations (functions whose name begins with PyObject_, PyNumber_,
PySequence_ or PyMapping_). These operations always create a new strong reference (i.e. increment the reference
count) of the object they return. This leaves the caller with the responsibility to call Py_DECREF() when they are
done with the result; this soon becomes second nature.

Reference Count Details

The reference count behavior of functions in the Python/C API is best explained in terms of ownership of references.
Ownership pertains to references, never to objects (objects are not owned: they are always shared). “Owning a
reference” means being responsible for calling Py_DECREF on it when the reference is no longer needed. Ownership
can also be transferred, meaning that the code that receives ownership of the reference then becomes responsible for
eventually releasing it by calling Py_DECREF() or Py_XDECREF() when it’s no longer needed—or passing on this
responsibility (usually to its caller). When a function passes ownership of a reference on to its caller, the caller is
said to receive a new reference. When no ownership is transferred, the caller is said to borrow the reference. Nothing
needs to be done for a borrowed reference.
Conversely, when a calling function passes in a reference to an object, there are two possibilities: the function steals

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a reference to the object, or it does not. Stealing a reference means that when you pass a reference to a function, that
function assumes that it now owns that reference, and you are not responsible for it any longer.
Few functions steal references; the two notable exceptions are PyList_SetItem() and PyTuple_SetItem(),
which steal a reference to the item (but not to the tuple or list into which the item is put!). These functions were
designed to steal a reference because of a common idiom for populating a tuple or list with newly created objects; for
example, the code to create the tuple (1, 2, "three") could look like this (forgetting about error handling for
the moment; a better way to code this is shown below):

PyObject *t;

t = PyTuple_New(3);
PyTuple_SetItem(t, 0, PyLong_FromLong(1L));
PyTuple_SetItem(t, 1, PyLong_FromLong(2L));
PyTuple_SetItem(t, 2, PyUnicode_FromString("three"));

Here, PyLong_FromLong() returns a new reference which is immediately stolen by PyTuple_SetItem(). When
you want to keep using an object although the reference to it will be stolen, use Py_INCREF() to grab another
reference before calling the reference-stealing function.
Incidentally, PyTuple_SetItem() is the only way to set tuple items; PySequence_SetItem() and
PyObject_SetItem() refuse to do this since tuples are an immutable data type. You should only use
PyTuple_SetItem() for tuples that you are creating yourself.

Equivalent code for populating a list can be written using PyList_New() and PyList_SetItem().
However, in practice, you will rarely use these ways of creating and populating a tuple or list. There’s a generic
function, Py_BuildValue(), that can create most common objects from C values, directed by a format string.
For example, the above two blocks of code could be replaced by the following (which also takes care of the error
checking):

PyObject *tuple, *list;

tuple = Py_BuildValue("(iis)", 1, 2, "three");

list = Py_BuildValue("[iis]", 1, 2, "three");

It is much more common to use PyObject_SetItem() and friends with items whose references you are only
borrowing, like arguments that were passed in to the function you are writing. In that case, their behaviour regarding
references is much saner, since you don’t have to take a new reference just so you can give that reference away (“have
it be stolen”). For example, this function sets all items of a list (actually, any mutable sequence) to a given item:

int
set_all(PyObject *target, PyObject *item)
{
Py_ssize_t i, n;

n = PyObject_Length(target);
if (n < 0)
return -1;
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
PyObject *index = PyLong_FromSsize_t(i);
if (!index)
return -1;
if (PyObject_SetItem(target, index, item) < 0) {
Py_DECREF(index);
return -1;
}
Py_DECREF(index);
}
(continues on next page)

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 The Python/C API, Release 3.14.0a7

(continued from previous page)

return 0;
}

The situation is slightly different for function return values. While passing a reference to most functions does not
change your ownership responsibilities for that reference, many functions that return a reference to an object give you
ownership of the reference. The reason is simple: in many cases, the returned object is created on the fly, and the
reference you get is the only reference to the object. Therefore, the generic functions that return object references,
like PyObject_GetItem() and PySequence_GetItem(), always return a new reference (the caller becomes the
owner of the reference).
It is important to realize that whether you own a reference returned by a function depends on which function you call
only — the plumage (the type of the object passed as an argument to the function) doesn’t enter into it! Thus, if you
extract an item from a list using PyList_GetItem(), you don’t own the reference — but if you obtain the same
item from the same list using PySequence_GetItem() (which happens to take exactly the same arguments), you
do own a reference to the returned object.
Here is an example of how you could write a function that computes the sum of the items in a list of integers; once
using PyList_GetItem(), and once using PySequence_GetItem().

long
sum_list(PyObject *list)
{
Py_ssize_t i, n;
long total = 0, value;
PyObject *item;

n = PyList_Size(list);
if (n < 0)
return -1; /* Not a list */
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
item = PyList_GetItem(list, i); /* Can't fail */
if (!PyLong_Check(item)) continue; /* Skip non-integers */
value = PyLong_AsLong(item);
if (value == -1 && PyErr_Occurred())
/* Integer too big to fit in a C long, bail out */
return -1;
total += value;
}
return total;
}

long
sum_sequence(PyObject *sequence)
{
Py_ssize_t i, n;
long total = 0, value;
PyObject *item;
n = PySequence_Length(sequence);
if (n < 0)
return -1; /* Has no length */
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
item = PySequence_GetItem(sequence, i);
if (item == NULL)
return -1; /* Not a sequence, or other failure */
if (PyLong_Check(item)) {
value = PyLong_AsLong(item);
Py_DECREF(item);
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if (value == -1 && PyErr_Occurred())
/* Integer too big to fit in a C long, bail out */
return -1;
total += value;
}
else {
Py_DECREF(item); /* Discard reference ownership */
}
}
return total;
}

1.5.2 Types
There are few other data types that play a significant role in the Python/C API; most are simple C types such as int,
long, double and char*. A few structure types are used to describe static tables used to list the functions exported
by a module or the data attributes of a new object type, and another is used to describe the value of a complex number.
These will be discussed together with the functions that use them.
type Py_ssize_t
Part of the Stable ABI. A signed integral type such that sizeof(Py_ssize_t) == sizeof(size_t).
C99 doesn’t define such a thing directly (size_t is an unsigned integral type). See PEP 353 for details.
PY_SSIZE_T_MAX is the largest positive value of type Py_ssize_t.

1.6 Exceptions
The Python programmer only needs to deal with exceptions if specific error handling is required; unhandled excep-
tions are automatically propagated to the caller, then to the caller’s caller, and so on, until they reach the top-level
interpreter, where they are reported to the user accompanied by a stack traceback.
For C programmers, however, error checking always has to be explicit. All functions in the Python/C API can raise
exceptions, unless an explicit claim is made otherwise in a function’s documentation. In general, when a function
encounters an error, it sets an exception, discards any object references that it owns, and returns an error indicator.
If not documented otherwise, this indicator is either NULL or -1, depending on the function’s return type. A few
functions return a Boolean true/false result, with false indicating an error. Very few functions return no explicit error
indicator or have an ambiguous return value, and require explicit testing for errors with PyErr_Occurred(). These
exceptions are always explicitly documented.
Exception state is maintained in per-thread storage (this is equivalent to using global storage in an unthreaded appli-
cation). A thread can be in one of two states: an exception has occurred, or not. The function PyErr_Occurred()
can be used to check for this: it returns a borrowed reference to the exception type object when an exception has
occurred, and NULL otherwise. There are a number of functions to set the exception state: PyErr_SetString()
is the most common (though not the most general) function to set the exception state, and PyErr_Clear() clears
the exception state.
The full exception state consists of three objects (all of which can be NULL): the exception type, the corresponding
exception value, and the traceback. These have the same meanings as the Python result of sys.exc_info();
however, they are not the same: the Python objects represent the last exception being handled by a Python try …
except statement, while the C level exception state only exists while an exception is being passed on between C
functions until it reaches the Python bytecode interpreter’s main loop, which takes care of transferring it to sys.
exc_info() and friends.

Note that starting with Python 1.5, the preferred, thread-safe way to access the exception state from Python code
is to call the function sys.exc_info(), which returns the per-thread exception state for Python code. Also, the
semantics of both ways to access the exception state have changed so that a function which catches an exception will
save and restore its thread’s exception state so as to preserve the exception state of its caller. This prevents common
bugs in exception handling code caused by an innocent-looking function overwriting the exception being handled; it
also reduces the often unwanted lifetime extension for objects that are referenced by the stack frames in the traceback.

10 Chapter 1. Introduction
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As a general principle, a function that calls another function to perform some task should check whether the called
function raised an exception, and if so, pass the exception state on to its caller. It should discard any object references
that it owns, and return an error indicator, but it should not set another exception — that would overwrite the exception
that was just raised, and lose important information about the exact cause of the error.
A simple example of detecting exceptions and passing them on is shown in the sum_sequence() example above.
It so happens that this example doesn’t need to clean up any owned references when it detects an error. The following
example function shows some error cleanup. First, to remind you why you like Python, we show the equivalent
Python code:

def incr_item(dict, key):

try:
item = dict[key]
except KeyError:
item = 0
dict[key] = item + 1

Here is the corresponding C code, in all its glory:

int
incr_item(PyObject *dict, PyObject *key)
{
/* Objects all initialized to NULL for Py_XDECREF */
PyObject *item = NULL, *const_one = NULL, *incremented_item = NULL;
int rv = -1; /* Return value initialized to -1 (failure) */

item = PyObject_GetItem(dict, key);

if (item == NULL) {
/* Handle KeyError only: */
if (!PyErr_ExceptionMatches(PyExc_KeyError))
goto error;

/* Clear the error and use zero: */

PyErr_Clear();
item = PyLong_FromLong(0L);
if (item == NULL)
goto error;
}
const_one = PyLong_FromLong(1L);
if (const_one == NULL)
goto error;

incremented_item = PyNumber_Add(item, const_one);

if (incremented_item == NULL)
goto error;

if (PyObject_SetItem(dict, key, incremented_item) < 0)

goto error;
rv = 0; /* Success */
/* Continue with cleanup code */

error:
/* Cleanup code, shared by success and failure path */

/* Use Py_XDECREF() to ignore NULL references */

Py_XDECREF(item);
Py_XDECREF(const_one);
Py_XDECREF(incremented_item);
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1.6. Exceptions 11
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(continued from previous page)

return rv; /* -1 for error, 0 for success */

}

This example represents an endorsed use of the goto statement in C! It illustrates the use of
PyErr_ExceptionMatches() and PyErr_Clear() to handle specific exceptions, and the use of Py_XDECREF()
to dispose of owned references that may be NULL (note the 'X' in the name; Py_DECREF() would crash when
confronted with a NULL reference). It is important that the variables used to hold owned references are initialized to
NULL for this to work; likewise, the proposed return value is initialized to -1 (failure) and only set to success after
the final call made is successful.

1.7 Embedding Python

The one important task that only embedders (as opposed to extension writers) of the Python interpreter have to worry
about is the initialization, and possibly the finalization, of the Python interpreter. Most functionality of the interpreter
can only be used after the interpreter has been initialized.
The basic initialization function is Py_Initialize(). This initializes the table of loaded modules, and creates the
fundamental modules builtins, __main__, and sys. It also initializes the module search path (sys.path).
Py_Initialize() does not set the “script argument list” (sys.argv). If this variable is needed by Python code that
will be executed later, setting PyConfig.argv and PyConfig.parse_argv must be set: see Python Initialization
Configuration.
On most systems (in particular, on Unix and Windows, although the details are slightly different),
Py_Initialize() calculates the module search path based upon its best guess for the location of the standard
Python interpreter executable, assuming that the Python library is found in a fixed location relative to the Python
interpreter executable. In particular, it looks for a directory named lib/pythonX.Y relative to the parent directory
where the executable named python is found on the shell command search path (the environment variable PATH).
For instance, if the Python executable is found in /usr/local/bin/python, it will assume that the libraries are in
/usr/local/lib/pythonX.Y . (In fact, this particular path is also the “fallback” location, used when no executable
file named python is found along PATH.) The user can override this behavior by setting the environment variable
PYTHONHOME, or insert additional directories in front of the standard path by setting PYTHONPATH.

The embedding application can steer the search by setting PyConfig.program_name before calling
Py_InitializeFromConfig(). Note that PYTHONHOME still overrides this and PYTHONPATH is still inserted
in front of the standard path. An application that requires total control has to provide its own implementation of
Py_GetPath(), Py_GetPrefix(), Py_GetExecPrefix(), and Py_GetProgramFullPath() (all defined in
Modules/getpath.c).

Sometimes, it is desirable to “uninitialize” Python. For instance, the application may want to start over (make another
call to Py_Initialize()) or the application is simply done with its use of Python and wants to free memory allo-
cated by Python. This can be accomplished by calling Py_FinalizeEx(). The function Py_IsInitialized()
returns true if Python is currently in the initialized state. More information about these functions is given in a later
chapter. Notice that Py_FinalizeEx() does not free all memory allocated by the Python interpreter, e.g. memory
allocated by extension modules currently cannot be released.

1.8 Debugging Builds

Python can be built with several macros to enable extra checks of the interpreter and extension modules. These
checks tend to add a large amount of overhead to the runtime so they are not enabled by default.
A full list of the various types of debugging builds is in the file Misc/SpecialBuilds.txt in the Python source
distribution. Builds are available that support tracing of reference counts, debugging the memory allocator, or low-
level