.. highlight:: cython

.. _compilation-reference:

=============
Compilation
=============

Cython code, unlike Python, must be compiled.  This happens in two stages:

  * A ``.pyx`` file is compiled by Cython to a ``.c`` file.

  * The ``.c`` file is compiled by a C compiler to a ``.so`` file (or a
    ``.pyd`` file on Windows)


The following sub-sections describe several ways to build your
extension modules, and how to pass directives to the Cython compiler.


Compiling from the command line
===============================

Run the ``cythonize`` compiler command with your options and list of
``.pyx`` files to generate.  For example::

    $ cythonize -a -i yourmod.pyx

This creates a ``yourmod.c`` file (or ``yourmod.cpp`` in C++ mode), compiles it,
and puts the resulting extension module (``.so`` or ``.pyd``, depending on your
platform) next to the source file for direct import (``-i`` builds "in place").
The ``-a`` switch additionally produces an annotated html file of the source code.

The ``cythonize`` command accepts multiple source files and glob patterns like
``**/*.pyx`` as argument and also understands the common ``-j`` option for
running multiple parallel build jobs.  When called without further options, it
will only translate the source files to ``.c`` or ``.cpp`` files.  Pass the
``-h`` flag for a complete list of supported options.

There is also a simpler command line tool named ``cython`` which only invokes
the source code translator.

In the case of manual compilation, how to compile your ``.c`` files will vary
depending on your operating system and compiler.  The Python documentation for
writing extension modules should have some details for your system.  On a Linux
system, for example, it might look similar to this::

    $ gcc -shared -pthread -fPIC -fwrapv -O2 -Wall -fno-strict-aliasing \
          -I/usr/include/python3.5 -o yourmod.so yourmod.c

(``gcc`` will need to have paths to your included header files and paths
to libraries you want to link with.)

After compilation, a ``yourmod.so`` file is written into the target directory
and your module, ``yourmod``, is available for you to import as with any other
Python module.  Note that if you are not relying on ``cythonize`` or distutils,
you will not automatically benefit from the platform specific file extension
that CPython generates for disambiguation, such as
``yourmod.cpython-35m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so`` on a regular 64bit Linux installation
of CPython 3.5.

.. _compiling-distutils:
Compiling with ``distutils``
============================

The ``distutils`` package is part of the standard library.  It is the standard
way of building Python packages, including native extension modules.  The
following example configures the build for a Cython file called *hello.pyx*.
First, create a ``setup.py`` script::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from Cython.Build import cythonize

    setup(
        name = "My hello app",
        ext_modules = cythonize('hello.pyx'),  # accepts a glob pattern
    )

Now, run the command ``python setup.py build_ext --inplace`` in your
system's command shell and you are done.  Import your new extension
module into your python shell or script as normal.

The ``cythonize`` command also allows for multi-threaded compilation and
dependency resolution.  Recompilation will be skipped if the target file
is up to date with its main source file and dependencies.


Configuring the C-Build
------------------------

If you have include files in non-standard places you can pass an
``include_path`` parameter to ``cythonize``::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from Cython.Build import cythonize

    setup(
        name = "My hello app",
        ext_modules = cythonize("src/*.pyx", include_path = [...]),
    )

Often, Python packages that offer a C-level API provide a way to find
the necessary include files, e.g. for NumPy::

    include_path = [numpy.get_include()]

Note for Numpy users.  Despite this, you will still get warnings like the
following from the compiler, because Cython is using a deprecated Numpy API::

   .../include/numpy/npy_1_7_deprecated_api.h:15:2: warning: #warning "Using deprecated NumPy API, disable it by " "#defining NPY_NO_DEPRECATED_API NPY_1_7_API_VERSION" [-Wcpp]

For the time being, it is just a warning that you can ignore.

If you need to specify compiler options, libraries to link with or other
linker options you will need to create ``Extension`` instances manually
(note that glob syntax can still be used to specify multiple extensions
in one line)::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from distutils.extension import Extension
    from Cython.Build import cythonize

    extensions = [
        Extension("primes", ["primes.pyx"],
            include_dirs = [...],
            libraries = [...],
            library_dirs = [...]),
        # Everything but primes.pyx is included here.
        Extension("*", ["*.pyx"],
            include_dirs = [...],
            libraries = [...],
            library_dirs = [...]),
    ]
    setup(
        name = "My hello app",
        ext_modules = cythonize(extensions),
    )

Note that when using setuptools, you should import it before Cython as
setuptools may replace the ``Extension`` class in distutils.  Otherwise,
both might disagree about the class to use here.

If your options are static (for example you do not need to call a tool like
``pkg-config`` to determine them) you can also provide them directly in your
.pyx or .pxd source file using a special comment block at the start of the file::

    # distutils: libraries = spam eggs
    # distutils: include_dirs = /opt/food/include

If you cimport multiple .pxd files defining libraries, then Cython
merges the list of libraries, so this works as expected (similarly
with other options, like ``include_dirs`` above).

If you have some C files that have been wrapped with Cython and you want to
compile them into your extension, you can define the distutils ``sources``
parameter::

    # distutils: sources = helper.c, another_helper.c

Note that these sources are added to the list of sources of the current
extension module.  Spelling this out in the :file:`setup.py` file looks
as follows::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from Cython.Build import cythonize
    from distutils.extension import Extension

    sourcefiles = ['example.pyx', 'helper.c', 'another_helper.c']

    extensions = [Extension("example", sourcefiles)]

    setup(
        ext_modules = cythonize(extensions)
    )

The :class:`Extension` class takes many options, and a fuller explanation can
be found in the `distutils documentation`_. Some useful options to know about
are ``include_dirs``, ``libraries``, and ``library_dirs`` which specify where
to find the ``.h`` and library files when linking to external libraries.

.. _distutils documentation: http://docs.python.org/extending/building.html

Sometimes this is not enough and you need finer customization of the
distutils :class:`Extension`.
To do this, you can provide a custom function ``create_extension``
to create the final :class:`Extension` object after Cython has processed
the sources, dependencies and ``# distutils`` directives but before the
file is actually Cythonized.
This function takes 2 arguments ``template`` and ``kwds``, where
``template`` is the :class:`Extension` object given as input to Cython
and ``kwds`` is a :class:`dict` with all keywords which should be used
to create the :class:`Extension`.
The function ``create_extension`` must return a 2-tuple
``(extension, metadata)``, where ``extension`` is the created
:class:`Extension` and ``metadata`` is metadata which will be written
as JSON at the top of the generated C files. This metadata is only used
for debugging purposes, so you can put whatever you want in there
(as long as it can be converted to JSON).
The default function (defined in ``Cython.Build.Dependencies``) is::

    def default_create_extension(template, kwds):
        if 'depends' in kwds:
            include_dirs = kwds.get('include_dirs', []) + ["."]
            depends = resolve_depends(kwds['depends'], include_dirs)
            kwds['depends'] = sorted(set(depends + template.depends))

        t = template.__class__
        ext = t(**kwds)
        metadata = dict(distutils=kwds, module_name=kwds['name'])
        return (ext, metadata)

In case that you pass a string instead of an :class:`Extension` to
``cythonize()``, the ``template`` will be an :class:`Extension` without
sources. For example, if you do ``cythonize("*.pyx")``,
the ``template`` will be ``Extension(name="*.pyx", sources=[])``.

Just as an example, this adds ``mylib`` as library to every extension::

    from Cython.Build.Dependencies import default_create_extension

    def my_create_extension(template, kwds):
        libs = kwds.get('libraries', []) + ["mylib"]
        kwds['libraries'] = libs
        return default_create_extension(template, kwds)

    ext_modules = cythonize(..., create_extension=my_create_extension)

.. note::

    If you Cythonize in parallel (using the ``nthreads`` argument),
    then the argument to ``create_extension`` must be pickleable.
    In particular, it cannot be a lambda function.


Distributing Cython modules
----------------------------

It is strongly recommended that you distribute the generated ``.c`` files as well
as your Cython sources, so that users can install your module without needing
to have Cython available.

It is also recommended that Cython compilation not be enabled by default in the
version you distribute. Even if the user has Cython installed, he/she probably
doesn't want to use it just to install your module. Also, the installed version
may not be the same one you used, and may not compile your sources correctly.

This simply means that the :file:`setup.py` file that you ship with will just
be a normal distutils file on the generated `.c` files, for the basic example
we would have instead::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from distutils.extension import Extension

    setup(
        ext_modules = [Extension("example", ["example.c"])]
    )

This is easy to combine with :func:`cythonize` by changing the file extension
of the extension module sources::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from distutils.extension import Extension

    USE_CYTHON = ...   # command line option, try-import, ...

    ext = '.pyx' if USE_CYTHON else '.c'

    extensions = [Extension("example", ["example"+ext])]

    if USE_CYTHON:
        from Cython.Build import cythonize
        extensions = cythonize(extensions)

    setup(
        ext_modules = extensions
    )

If you have many extensions and want to avoid the additional complexity in the
declarations, you can declare them with their normal Cython sources and then
call the following function instead of ``cythonize()`` to adapt the sources
list in the Extensions when not using Cython::

    import os.path

    def no_cythonize(extensions, **_ignore):
        for extension in extensions:
            sources = []
            for sfile in extension.sources:
                path, ext = os.path.splitext(sfile)
                if ext in ('.pyx', '.py'):
                    if extension.language == 'c++':
                        ext = '.cpp'
                    else:
                        ext = '.c'
                    sfile = path + ext
                sources.append(sfile)
            extension.sources[:] = sources
        return extensions

Another option is to make Cython a setup dependency of your system and use
Cython's build_ext module which runs ``cythonize`` as part of the build process::

    setup(
        setup_requires=[
            'cython>=0.x',
        ],
        extensions = [Extension("*", ["*.pyx"])],
        cmdclass={'build_ext': Cython.Build.build_ext},
        ...
    )

If you want to expose the C-level interface of your library for other
libraries to cimport from, use package_data to install the ``.pxd`` files,
e.g.::

    setup(
        package_data = {
            'my_package': ['*.pxd'],
            'my_package/sub_package': ['*.pxd'],
        },
        ...
    )

These ``.pxd`` files need not have corresponding ``.pyx``
modules if they contain purely declarations of external libraries.


Integrating multiple modules
============================

In some scenarios, it can be useful to link multiple Cython modules
(or other extension modules) into a single binary, e.g. when embedding
Python in another application.  This can be done through the inittab
import mechanism of CPython.

Create a new C file to integrate the extension modules and add this
macro to it::

    #if PY_MAJOR_VERSION < 3
    # define MODINIT(name)  init ## name
    #else
    # define MODINIT(name)  PyInit_ ## name
    #endif

If you are only targeting Python 3.x, just use ``PyInit_`` as prefix.

Then, for each or the modules, declare its module init function
as follows, replacing ``...`` by the name of the module::

    PyMODINIT_FUNC  MODINIT(...) (void);

In C++, declare them as ``extern C``.

If you are not sure of the name of the module init function, refer
to your generated module source file and look for a function name
starting with ``PyInit_``.

Next, before you start the Python runtime from your application code
with ``Py_Initialize()``, you need to initialise the modules at runtime
using the ``PyImport_AppendInittab()`` C-API function, again inserting
the name of each of the modules::

    PyImport_AppendInittab("...", MODINIT(...));

This enables normal imports for the embedded extension modules.

In order to prevent the joined binary from exporting all of the module
init functions as public symbols, Cython 0.28 and later can hide these
symbols if the macro ``CYTHON_NO_PYINIT_EXPORT`` is defined while
C-compiling the module C files.

Also take a look at the `cython_freeze
<https://github.com/cython/cython/blob/master/bin/cython_freeze>`_ tool.


Compiling with :mod:`pyximport`
===============================

For building Cython modules during development without explicitly
running ``setup.py`` after each change, you can use :mod:`pyximport`::

    >>> import pyximport; pyximport.install()
    >>> import helloworld
    Hello World

This allows you to automatically run Cython on every ``.pyx`` that
Python is trying to import.  You should use this for simple Cython
builds only where no extra C libraries and no special building setup
is needed.

It is also possible to compile new ``.py`` modules that are being
imported (including the standard library and installed packages).  For
using this feature, just tell that to :mod:`pyximport`::

    >>> pyximport.install(pyimport = True)

In the case that Cython fails to compile a Python module, :mod:`pyximport`
will fall back to loading the source modules instead.

Note that it is not recommended to let :mod:`pyximport` build code
on end user side as it hooks into their import system.  The best way
to cater for end users is to provide pre-built binary packages in the
`wheel <https://wheel.readthedocs.io/>`_ packaging format.

Compiling with ``cython.inline``
=================================

One can also compile Cython in a fashion similar to SciPy's ``weave.inline``.
For example::

    >>> import cython
    >>> def f(a):
    ...     ret = cython.inline("return a+b", b=3)
    ...

Unbound variables are automatically pulled from the surrounding local
and global scopes, and the result of the compilation is cached for
efficient re-use.

Compiling with Sage
===================

The Sage notebook allows transparently editing and compiling Cython
code simply by typing ``%cython`` at the top of a cell and evaluate
it. Variables and functions defined in a Cython cell are imported into the
running session.  Please check `Sage documentation
<http://www.sagemath.org/doc/>`_ for details.

You can tailor the behavior of the Cython compiler by specifying the
directives below.

.. _compiler-directives:

Compiler directives
====================

Compiler directives are instructions which affect the behavior of
Cython code.  Here is the list of currently supported directives:

``binding`` (True / False)
    Controls whether free functions behave more like Python's CFunctions
    (e.g. :func:`len`) or, when set to True, more like Python's functions.
    When enabled, functions will bind to an instance when looked up as a
    class attribute (hence the name) and will emulate the attributes
    of Python functions, including introspections like argument names and
    annotations.
    Default is False.

``boundscheck``  (True / False)
    If set to False, Cython is free to assume that indexing operations
    ([]-operator) in the code will not cause any IndexErrors to be
    raised. Lists, tuples, and strings are affected only if the index
    can be determined to be non-negative (or if ``wraparound`` is False).
    Conditions which would normally trigger an IndexError may instead cause
    segfaults or data corruption if this is set to False.
    Default is True.

``wraparound``  (True / False)
    In Python, arrays and sequences can be indexed relative to the end.
    For example, A[-1] indexes the last value of a list.
    In C, negative indexing is not supported.
    If set to False, Cython is allowed to neither check for nor correctly
    handle negative indices, possibly causing segfaults or data corruption.
    If bounds checks are enabled (the default, see ``boundschecks`` above),
    negative indexing will usually raise an ``IndexError`` for indices that
    Cython evaluates itself.
    However, these cases can be difficult to recognise in user code to
    distinguish them from indexing or slicing that is evaluated by the
    underlying Python array or sequence object and thus continues to support
    wrap-around indices.
    It is therefore safest to apply this option only to code that does not
    process negative indices at all.
    Default is True.

``initializedcheck`` (True / False)
    If set to True, Cython checks that a memoryview is initialized
    whenever its elements are accessed or assigned to. Setting this
    to False disables these checks.
    Default is True.

``nonecheck``  (True / False)
    If set to False, Cython is free to assume that native field
    accesses on variables typed as an extension type, or buffer
    accesses on a buffer variable, never occurs when the variable is
    set to ``None``. Otherwise a check is inserted and the
    appropriate exception is raised. This is off by default for
    performance reasons.  Default is False.

``overflowcheck`` (True / False)
    If set to True, raise errors on overflowing C integer arithmetic
    operations.  Incurs a modest runtime penalty, but is much faster than
    using Python ints.  Default is False.

``overflowcheck.fold`` (True / False)
    If set to True, and overflowcheck is True, check the overflow bit for
    nested, side-effect-free arithmetic expressions once rather than at every
    step.  Depending on the compiler, architecture, and optimization settings,
    this may help or hurt performance.  A simple suite of benchmarks can be
    found in ``Demos/overflow_perf.pyx``.  Default is True.

``embedsignature`` (True / False)
    If set to True, Cython will embed a textual copy of the call
    signature in the docstring of all Python visible functions and
    classes. Tools like IPython and epydoc can thus display the
    signature, which cannot otherwise be retrieved after
    compilation.  Default is False.

``cdivision`` (True / False)
    If set to False, Cython will adjust the remainder and quotient
    operators C types to match those of Python ints (which differ when
    the operands have opposite signs) and raise a
    ``ZeroDivisionError`` when the right operand is 0. This has up to
    a 35% speed penalty. If set to True, no checks are performed.  See
    `CEP 516 <https://github.com/cython/cython/wiki/enhancements-division>`_.  Default
    is False.

``cdivision_warnings`` (True / False)
    If set to True, Cython will emit a runtime warning whenever
    division is performed with negative operands.  See `CEP 516
    <https://github.com/cython/cython/wiki/enhancements-division>`_.  Default is
    False.

``always_allow_keywords`` (True / False)
    Avoid the ``METH_NOARGS`` and ``METH_O`` when constructing
    functions/methods which take zero or one arguments. Has no effect
    on special methods and functions with more than one argument. The
    ``METH_NOARGS`` and ``METH_O`` signatures provide faster
    calling conventions but disallow the use of keywords.

``profile`` (True / False)
    Write hooks for Python profilers into the compiled C code.  Default
    is False.

``linetrace`` (True / False)
    Write line tracing hooks for Python profilers or coverage reporting
    into the compiled C code.  This also enables profiling.  Default is
    False.  Note that the generated module will not actually use line
    tracing, unless you additionally pass the C macro definition
    ``CYTHON_TRACE=1`` to the C compiler (e.g. using the distutils option
    ``define_macros``).  Define ``CYTHON_TRACE_NOGIL=1`` to also include
    ``nogil`` functions and sections.

``infer_types`` (True / False)
    Infer types of untyped variables in function bodies. Default is
    None, indicating that only safe (semantically-unchanging) inferences
    are allowed.
    In particular, inferring *integral* types for variables *used in arithmetic
    expressions* is considered unsafe (due to possible overflow) and must be
    explicitly requested.

``language_level`` (2/3)
    Globally set the Python language level to be used for module
    compilation.  Default is compatibility with Python 2.  To enable
    Python 3 source code semantics, set this to 3 at the start of a
    module or pass the "-3" command line option to the compiler.
    Note that cimported and included source files inherit this
    setting from the module being compiled, unless they explicitly
    set their own language level.

``c_string_type`` (bytes / str / unicode)
    Globally set the type of an implicit coercion from char* or std::string.

``c_string_encoding`` (ascii, default, utf-8, etc.)
    Globally set the encoding to use when implicitly coercing char* or std:string
    to a unicode object.  Coercion from a unicode object to C type is only allowed
    when set to ``ascii`` or ``default``, the latter being utf-8 in Python 3 and
    nearly-always ascii in Python 2.

``type_version_tag`` (True / False)
    Enables the attribute cache for extension types in CPython by setting the
    type flag ``Py_TPFLAGS_HAVE_VERSION_TAG``.  Default is True, meaning that
    the cache is enabled for Cython implemented types.  To disable it
    explicitly in the rare cases where a type needs to juggle with its ``tp_dict``
    internally without paying attention to cache consistency, this option can
    be set to False.

``unraisable_tracebacks`` (True / False)
    Whether to print tracebacks when suppressing unraisable exceptions.

``iterable_coroutine`` (True / False)
    `PEP 492 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0492/>`_ specifies that async-def
    coroutines must not be iterable, in order to prevent accidental misuse in
    non-async contexts.  However, this makes it difficult and inefficient to write
    backwards compatible code that uses async-def coroutines in Cython but needs to
    interact with async Python code that uses the older yield-from syntax, such as
    asyncio before Python 3.5.  This directive can be applied in modules or
    selectively as decorator on an async-def coroutine to make the affected
    coroutine(s) iterable and thus directly interoperable with yield-from.


Configurable optimisations
--------------------------

``optimize.use_switch`` (True / False)
    Whether to expand chained if-else statements (including statements like
    ``if x == 1 or x == 2:``) into C switch statements.  This can have performance
    benefits if there are lots of values but cause compiler errors if there are any
    duplicate values (which may not be detectable at Cython compile time for all
    C constants).  Default is True.

``optimize.unpack_method_calls`` (True / False)
    Cython can generate code that optimistically checks for Python method objects
    at call time and unpacks the underlying function to call it directly.  This
    can substantially speed up method calls, especially for builtins, but may also
    have a slight negative performance impact in some cases where the guess goes
    completely wrong.
    Disabling this option can also reduce the code size.  Default is True.

Warnings
--------

All warning directives take True / False as options
to turn the warning on / off.

``warn.undeclared`` (default False)
    Warns about any variables that are implicitly declared without a ``cdef`` declaration

``warn.unreachable`` (default True)
    Warns about code paths that are statically determined to be unreachable, e.g.
    returning twice unconditionally.

``warn.maybe_uninitialized`` (default False)
    Warns about use of variables that are conditionally uninitialized.

``warn.unused`` (default False)
    Warns about unused variables and declarations

``warn.unused_arg`` (default False)
    Warns about unused function arguments

``warn.unused_result`` (default False)
    Warns about unused assignment to the same name, such as
    ``r = 2; r = 1 + 2``

``warn.multiple_declarators`` (default True)
   Warns about multiple variables declared on the same line with at least one pointer type.
   For example ``cdef double* a, b`` - which, as in C, declares ``a`` as a pointer, ``b`` as
   a value type, but could be mininterpreted as declaring two pointers.


How to set directives
---------------------

Globally
:::::::::

One can set compiler directives through a special header comment at the top of the file, like this::

    #!python
    #cython: language_level=3, boundscheck=False

The comment must appear before any code (but can appear after other
comments or whitespace).

One can also pass a directive on the command line by using the -X switch::

    $ cython -X boundscheck=True ...

Directives passed on the command line will override directives set in
header comments.

Locally
::::::::

For local blocks, you need to cimport the special builtin ``cython``
module::

    #!python
    cimport cython

Then you can use the directives either as decorators or in a with
statement, like this::

    #!python
    @cython.boundscheck(False) # turn off boundscheck for this function
    def f():
        ...
        # turn it temporarily on again for this block
        with cython.boundscheck(True):
            ...

.. Warning:: These two methods of setting directives are **not**
    affected by overriding the directive on the command-line using the
    -X option.

In :file:`setup.py`
:::::::::::::::::::

Compiler directives can also be set in the :file:`setup.py` file by passing a keyword
argument to ``cythonize``::

    from distutils.core import setup
    from Cython.Build import cythonize

    setup(
        name = "My hello app",
        ext_modules = cythonize('hello.pyx', compiler_directives={'embedsignature': True}),
    )

This will override the default directives as specified in the ``compiler_directives`` dictionary.
Note that explicit per-file or local directives as explained above take precedence over the
values passed to ``cythonize``.
