Question

I have the following python 3 file:

import base64
import xxx

str = xxx.GetString()
str2 = base64.b64encode(str.encode())
str3 = str2.decode()
print str3

xxx is a module exported by some C++ code. This script does not work because calling Py_InitModule on this script returns NULL. The weird thing is if I create a stub xxx.py in the same directory

def GetString() :
    return "test"

and run the original script under python.exe, it works and outputs the base64 string. My question is why doesn’t it like the return value of xxx.GetString? In the C++ code, it returns a string object. I hope I have explained my question well enough… this is a strange error.

Answer 1

Py_InitModule() is for initializing extension modules written in C, which is not what you are looking for here. If you want to import a module from C, there is a wealth of functions available in the C API: http://docs.python.org/c-api/import.html

But if your aim is really to run a script rather than import a module, you could also use one of the PyRun_XXX() functions described here: http://docs.python.org/c-api/veryhigh.html