Overview

This package loads a library in Python. It is basically just a thin wrapper around ctypes (for libraries that use the __cdecl or __stdcall calling convention), Python.NET (for libraries that use .NET, CLR), Py4J (for Java .jar or .class files) and comtypes (for libraries that use the Component Object Model or ActiveX).

However, the primary advantage is that it is possible to communicate with a 32-bit library from 64-bit Python. For various reasons, mainly to do with the differences in pointer sizes, it is not possible to load a 32-bit library (e.g., .dll, .so, .dylib files) in a 64-bit process, and vice versa. This package contains a Server32 class that hosts a 32-bit library and a Client64 class that sends requests to the server to communicate with the 32-bit library as a form of inter-process communication.