PyO3 and rust-cpython
PyO3 began as fork of rust-cpython when rust-cpython wasn't maintained. Over time PyO3 has become fundamentally different from rust-cpython.
Macros
While rust-cpython has a macro_rules!
based dsl for declaring modules and classes, PyO3 uses proc macros. PyO3 also doesn't change your struct and functions so you can still use them as normal Rust functions.
rust-cpython
py_class!(class MyClass |py| {
data number: i32;
def __new__(_cls, arg: i32) -> PyResult<MyClass> {
MyClass::create_instance(py, arg)
}
def half(&self) -> PyResult<i32> {
Ok(self.number(py) / 2)
}
});
pyo3
Ownership and lifetimes
While in rust-cpython you always own python objects, PyO3 allows efficient borrowed objects and most APIs are available with references.
Here is an example of the PyList API:
rust-cpython
impl PyList {
fn new(py: Python) -> PyList {...}
fn get_item(&self, py: Python, index: isize) -> PyObject {...}
}
pyo3
impl PyList {
fn new(py: Python) -> &PyList {...}
fn get_item(&self, index: isize) -> &PyAny {...}
}
In PyO3, all object references are bounded by the GIL lifetime.
So the owned Python object is not required, and it is safe to have functions like fn py<'p>(&'p self) -> Python<'p> {}
.
Error handling
rust-cpython requires a Python
parameter for constructing a PyErr
, so error handling ergonomics is pretty bad. It is not possible to use ?
with Rust errors.
PyO3 on other hand does not require Python
for constructing a PyErr
, it is only required if you want to raise an exception in Python with the PyErr::restore()
method. Due to various std::convert::From<E> for PyErr
implementations for Rust standard error types E
, propagating ?
is supported automatically.