8.5.1 Dl Objects

Dl objects, as returned by open() above, have the following methods:

close ()

Free all resources, except the memory.

sym (name)

Return the pointer for the function named name, as a number, if it exists in the referenced shared object, otherwise None. This is useful in code like:

>>> if a.sym('time'): 
...     a.call('time')
... else: 
...     time.time()

(Note that this function will return a non-zero number, as zero is the NULL pointer)

call (name[, arg1[, arg2...]])

Call the function named name in the referenced shared object. The arguments must be either Python integers, which will be passed as is, Python strings, to which a pointer will be passed, or None, which will be passed as NULL. Note that strings should only be passed to functions as const char*, as Python will not like its string mutated.

There must be at most 10 arguments, and arguments not given will be treated as None. The function's return value must be a C long, which is a Python integer.