make gistlib run c++ in python

To run C++ code in Python using GistLib, you can create a C++ library and use ctypes to load the library into Python as a wrapper. Here are the basic steps:

1. Write your C++ code and compile it into a shared library (.so file in Linux or .dll file in Windows).

// example_cpp.cpp
#include <iostream>

extern "C" {
  int add(int a, int b) {
    return a + b;
  }
}
103 chars
9 lines

# compile with g++ on Linux
g++ -shared -o example_cpp.so example_cpp.cpp

# compile with clang++ on macOS
clang++ -shared -o example_cpp.dylib example_cpp.cpp
160 chars
6 lines

2. Load the library in Python using ctypes.CDLL.

main.py
# example_py.py
from ctypes import CDLL

# load the shared library
lib = CDLL("./example_cpp.so")  # on Windows: CDLL("./example_cpp.dll")
139 chars
6 lines

3. Access the C++ functions through the loaded library.

main.py
# use the shared library
print(f"add(2, 3) = {lib.add(2, 3)}")  # should print 5
81 chars
3 lines

You can also pass more complex data types, such as strings or arrays, by defining the function prototypes and data types in Python using ctypes. Check out the ctypes documentation for more information.