pythonenumsctypes

Using enums in ctypes.Structure


I have a struct I'm accessing via ctypes:

struct attrl {
   char   *name;
   char   *resource;
   char   *value;
   struct attrl *next;
   enum batch_op op;
};

So far I have Python code like:

# struct attropl
class attropl(Structure):
    pass
attrl._fields_ = [
        ("next", POINTER(attropl)),
        ("name", c_char_p),
        ("resource", c_char_p),
        ("value", c_char_p),

But I'm not sure what to use for the batch_op enum. Should I just map it to a c_int or ?


Solution

  • At least for GCC enum is just a simple numeric type. It can be 8-, 16-, 32-, 64-bit or whatever (I have tested it with 64-bit values) as well as signed or unsigned. I guess it cannot exceed long long int, but practically you should check the range of your enums and choose something like c_uint.

    Here is an example. The C program:

    enum batch_op {
        OP1 = 2,
        OP2 = 3,
        OP3 = -1,
    };
    
    struct attrl {
        char *name;
        struct attrl *next;
        enum batch_op op;
    };
    
    void f(struct attrl *x) {
        x->op = OP3;
    }
    

    and the Python one:

    from ctypes import (Structure, c_char_p, c_uint, c_int,
        POINTER, CDLL)
    
    class AttrList(Structure): pass
    AttrList._fields_ = [
        ('name', c_char_p),
        ('next', POINTER(AttrList)),
        ('op', c_int),
    ]
    
    (OP1, OP2, OP3) = (2, 3, -1)
    
    enum = CDLL('./libenum.so')
    enum.f.argtypes = [POINTER(AttrList)]
    enum.f.restype = None
    
    a = AttrList(name=None, next=None, op=OP2)
    assert a.op == OP2
    enum.f(a)
    assert a.op == OP3