Commit 6a0ce407 authored by Thomas Heller's avatar Thomas Heller

A few nore words about what ctypes does.

Document that using the wrong calling convention can also raise
'ValueError: Procedure called with the wrong number of arguments'.
parent 5d32a9f1
......@@ -6,13 +6,13 @@
\modulesynopsis{A foreign function library for Python.}
\versionadded{2.5}
\code{ctypes} is a foreign function library for Python.
\code{ctypes} is a foreign function library for Python. It provides C
compatible data types, and allows to call functions in dlls/shared
libraries. It can be used to wrap these libraries in pure Python.
\subsection{ctypes tutorial\label{ctypes-ctypes-tutorial}}
This tutorial describes version 0.9.9 of \code{ctypes}.
Note: The code samples in this tutorial uses \code{doctest} to make sure
that they actually work. Since some code samples behave differently
under Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X, they contain doctest directives in
......@@ -150,8 +150,10 @@ be used as the NULL pointer):
\end{verbatim}
\code{ctypes} tries to protect you from calling functions with the wrong
number of arguments. Unfortunately this only works on Windows. It
does this by examining the stack after the function returns:
number of arguments or the wrong calling convention. Unfortunately
this only works on Windows, for \code{stdcall} functions. It does this
by examining the stack after the function returns, so although an
error is raised the function \emph{has} been called:
\begin{verbatim}
>>> windll.kernel32.GetModuleHandleA() # doctest: +WINDOWS
Traceback (most recent call last):
......@@ -164,6 +166,25 @@ ValueError: Procedure probably called with too many arguments (4 bytes in excess
>>>
\end{verbatim}
The same exception is raised when you call an \code{stdcall} function
with the \code{cdecl} calling convention, or vice versa:
\begin{verbatim}
>>> cdll.kernel32.GetModuleHandleA(None) # doctest: +WINDOWS
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
ValueError: Procedure probably called with not enough arguments (4 bytes missing)
>>>
>>> windll.msvcrt.printf("spam") # doctest: +WINDOWS
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
ValueError: Procedure probably called with too many arguments (4 bytes in excess)
>>>
\end{verbatim}
To find out the correct calling convention you have to look into the C
header file or the documentation for the function you want to call.
On Windows, \code{ctypes} uses win32 structured exception handling to
prevent crashes from general protection faults when functions are
called with invalid argument values:
......@@ -1805,8 +1826,8 @@ supply. Here is the C declaration:
\begin{verbatim}
WINUSERAPI BOOL WINAPI
GetWindowRect(
HWND hWnd,
LPRECT lpRect);
HWND hWnd,
LPRECT lpRect);
\end{verbatim}
Here is the wrapping with \code{ctypes}:
......
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