[Python-Dev] PEP 384 (stable api) question (original) (raw)

Oscar Benjamin oscar.j.benjamin at gmail.com
Thu Nov 7 14:53:57 CET 2013

On 7 November 2013 12:44, Thomas Heller <theller at ctypes.org> wrote:

PEP 384 describes the stable Python api, available when PyLIMITEDAPI is defined.

However, there are some (small) changes in the function prototypes available, one example is (in Python 3.3): PyObject* PyObjectCallFunction(PyObject *callable, char *format, ...) which changed in Python 3.4 to 'const char *format' for the third argument. I know that this is only a subtle difference, but in my case it gives compiler warnings when I compile my stuff (my stuff is a little bit special, I have to admit, but anyway). I thought that the stable API would keep exactly the same across releases - is this expectation wrong or is this a bug?

I think you're confusing API with ABI. PEP 384 describes a stable ABI. This means that an extension module can be binary compatible with several different Python versions without needing to be recompiled for each particular CPython release. I don't think the change you refer to breaks binary compatibility.

Oscar

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