[GRASS-dev] access to grass (trunk 7.0.svn ) vector map from python

[Glynn Clements]

Fernando Pacheco wrote:

> Everything works correctly now, the problem has been fixed.
> I think the interface generated automatically with ctypesgen (like that of
> SWIG) isn't  attractive for inexperienced developers. It works very well and
> is fast, but the calls to the functions are complex (logically identical to
> those of C) and is not what an average developer would expect in Python.

I don't think that there is a realistic alternative.

If you modify the wrappers, you then have to update the modified
wrappers as the underlying libraries change. I just can't see this
happening.

> In the coming months we will be developing an interface for finite element
> modeling (Fenics project=Dolfin, Tritetmesh, etc.). We will start by making
> access to vector layers with Python more friendly, taking as a starting
> point what has been generated with ctypesgen.

Realistically, any higher-level interface is going to have to be built
on top of whatever is generated by ctypesgen, not replace it.

I can't see anyone being willing to specifically maintain
hand-generated wrappers, and we aren't likely to impose a requirement
that anyone modifying a header file must manually modify the
associated Python wrapper to match.

In fact, the lowest levels must be auto-generated to allow for
platform-specific details, e.g. the _FILE_OFFSET_BITS issue.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>