Advanced topics

FFI

PyO3 exposes much of Python's C API through the ffi module.

The C API is naturally unsafe and requires you to manage reference counts, errors and specific invariants yourself. Please refer to the C API Reference Manual and The Rustonomicon before using any function from that API.

Memory Management

PyO3's &PyAny "owned references" and Py<PyAny> smart pointers are used to access memory stored in Python's heap. This memory sometimes lives for longer than expected because of differences in Rust and Python's memory models. See the chapter on memory management for more information.