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## Chapter 1. python 1.0

### Joel de Guzman

### David Abrahams

Copyright © 2002-2004 Joel de Guzman, David Abrahams

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt )

## QuickStart

The Boost Python Library is a framework for interfacing Python and C++. It allows you to quickly and seamlessly expose C++ classes functions and objects to Python, and vice-versa, using no special tools -- just your C++ compiler. It is designed to wrap C++ interfaces non-intrusively, so that you should not have to change the C++ code at all in order to wrap it, making Boost.Python ideal for exposing 3rd-party libraries to Python. The library's use of advanced metaprogramming techniques simplifies its syntax for users, so that wrapping code takes on the look of a kind of declarative interface definition language (IDL).

## Hello World

Following C/C++ tradition, let's start with the "hello, world". A C++ Function:

    char const* greet()
    {
       return "hello, world";
    }

can be exposed to Python by writing a Boost.Python wrapper:

    #include <boost/python.hpp>
    using namespace boost::python;

    BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(hello)
    {
        def("greet", greet);
    }

That's it. We're done. We can now build this as a shared library. The resulting DLL is now visible to Python. Here's a sample Python session:

    >>> import hello
    >>> print hello.greet()
    hello, world

> Next stop... Building your Hello World module from start to finish...

Last revised: October 12, 2004 at 03:11:11 GMT |