I have built a library consists of python layer and C++ layer. In the C++ layer I have a big chunk of memory that I need to keep in the heap so the chunk has to be allocated dynamically at the time of compilation.
What I want to do is to make this chunk of memory configurable from the python side. Is there a way to allocate memory space dynamically from python and pass the pointer to C++ layer ?
Thanks
Use ctypes byref or pointer
to dynamically allocate memory you can create a variable or an array in Python (preferably use data types provided by ctypes) then you can pass the pointer to the C++ layer through a function or so
see: https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html#passing-pointers-or-passing-parameters-by-reference
You can use the ctypes library to make DLL/shared libraries calls.
Windows:
import ctypes
dwFlags = ctypes.c_int(0x00000008) # HEAP_ZERO_MEMORY
szSize = 256 # Size of the area you want to allocate
addr = ctypes.windll.kernel32.HeapAlloc(ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetProcessHeap(), ctypes.c_int(dwFlags), ctypes.c_int(szSize))
Now the variable addr holds the address of the memory allocated