The Very High Level Layer

The functions in this chapter will let you execute Python source code given in a file or a buffer, but they will not let you interact in a more detailed way with the interpreter.

Several of these functions accept a start symbol from the grammar as a parameter. The available start symbols are Py_eval_input, Py_file_input, and Py_single_input. These are described following the functions which accept them as parameters.

Note also that several of these functions take FILE* parameters. One particular issue which needs to be handled carefully is that the FILE structure for different C libraries can be different and incompatible. Under Windows (at least), it is possible for dynamically linked extensions to actually use different libraries, so care should be taken that FILE* parameters are only passed to these functions if it is certain that they were created by the same library that the Python runtime is using.

int Py_Main(int argc, char **argv)

The main program for the standard interpreter. This is made available for programs which embed Python. The argc and argv parameters should be prepared exactly as those which are passed to a C program’s main() function. It is important to note that the argument list may be modified (but the contents of the strings pointed to by the argument list are not). The return value will be `0` if the interpreter exits normally (ie, without an exception), 1 if the interpreter exits due to an exception, or 2 if the parameter list does not represent a valid Python command line.

Note that if an otherwise unhandled SystemExit is raised, this function will not return 1, but exit the process, as long as Py_InspectFlag is not set.

int PyRun_AnyFile(FILE *fp, const char *filename)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_AnyFileExFlags() below, leaving closeit set to 0 and flags set to NULL.

int PyRun_AnyFileFlags(FILE *fp, const char *filename, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_AnyFileExFlags() below, leaving the closeit argument set to 0.

int PyRun_AnyFileEx(FILE *fp, const char *filename, int closeit)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_AnyFileExFlags() below, leaving the flags argument set to NULL.

int PyRun_AnyFileExFlags(FILE *fp, const char *filename, int closeit, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

If fp refers to a file associated with an interactive device (console or terminal input or Unix pseudo-terminal), return the value of PyRun_InteractiveLoop(), otherwise return the result of PyRun_SimpleFile(). If filename is NULL, this function uses "???" as the filename.

int PyRun_SimpleString(const char *command)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_SimpleStringFlags() below, leaving the PyCompilerFlags* argument set to NULL.

int PyRun_SimpleStringFlags(const char *command, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

Executes the Python source code from command in the __main__ module according to the flags argument. If __main__ does not already exist, it is created. Returns 0 on success or -1 if an exception was raised. If there was an error, there is no way to get the exception information. For the meaning of flags, see below.

Note that if an otherwise unhandled SystemExit is raised, this function will not return -1, but exit the process, as long as Py_InspectFlag is not set.

int PyRun_SimpleFile(FILE *fp, const char *filename)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags() below, leaving closeit set to 0 and flags set to NULL.

int PyRun_SimpleFileFlags(FILE *fp, const char *filename, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags() below, leaving closeit set to 0.

int PyRun_SimpleFileEx(FILE *fp, const char *filename, int closeit)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags() below, leaving flags set to NULL.

int PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags(FILE *fp, const char *filename, int closeit, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

Similar to PyRun_SimpleStringFlags(), but the Python source code is read from fp instead of an in-memory string. filename should be the name of the file. If closeit is true, the file is closed before PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags returns.

int PyRun_InteractiveOne(FILE *fp, const char *filename)

This is a simplified interface to PyRun_InteractiveOneFlags() below, leaving flags set to NULL.

int PyRun_InteractiveOneFlags(FILE *fp, const char *filename, PyCompilerFlags *flags)

Read and execute a single statement from a file associated with an interactive device according to the flags argument. The user will be prompted using sys.ps1 and sys.ps2. Returns 0 when the input was executed successfully, -1 if there was an exception, or an error code from the errcode.h include file distributed as part of Python if there was a parse error. (Note that errcode.h is not included by Python.h, so must be included specifically if needed.)

int PyRun_InteractiveLoop(FILE *fp, const char *filename)