Re: ctypes-python bindings

On 18. 7. 2026 16:15, Daniel Sahlberg wrote:
> Hi,
>
> When testing 1.15.0-rc3, I stumbled on check-ctypes-python. That 
> currently fails miserably:
>
> [[[
> python: can't open file '/home/dsg/ramdisk/svn_trunk2/none': [Errno 2] 
> No such file or directory
> sed: can't read subversion/bindings/ctypes-python/svn_all.py: No such 
> file or directory
> cd 
> /home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/subversion/bindings/ctypes-python; 
> \
>   /bin/bash "/home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/libtool" 
> --tag=CC --silent --mode=execute `for f in 
> /home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/subversion/*/*.la; do echo 
> -dlopen $f; done` python test/run_all.py
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File 
> "/home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/subversion/bindings/ctypes-python/test/run_all.py", 
> line 22, in <module>
>     import setup_path
>   File 
> "/home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/subversion/bindings/ctypes-python/test/setup_path.py", 
> line 31, in <module>
>     import csvn.core
>   File 
> "/home/dsg/ramdisk_backstorage/svn_trunk2/subversion/bindings/ctypes-python/csvn/core/__init__.py", 
> line 20, in <module>
>     import functions
> ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'functions'
> make: *** [Makefile:1050: check-ctypes-python] Error 1
> ]]]
>
> I've started fixing errors one by one and I have a 444 line diff, but 
> I'm no closer to making it work.
>
> Given that last substantial commit was somewhere around 2011, this is 
> probably yet another feature we are not maintaining as well as we 
> should. I believe a lot of things have not been updated from Py2 to 
> Py3 standards but it seems to be other stuff as well.


Ctypes-python is broken and unmaintained. Because of that, nobody uses it.


> Is there any advantage having a ctypes-binding over the swig-binding? 
> Otherwise, I think we should axe this one as well - in this particular 
> case (since it currently doesn't work) - I'm on the SIGKILL squad.

Theoretically, one can build better bindings with ctypes than Swig, 
because you get a more "native" mapping of types. But we didn't. I think 
15 years of brokenness is long enough.

-- Brane