How does pybind11 methods end up calling functions from the shared library?

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I can make as much out as its build system generates a shared object, and also a Python module as a proxy to that shared object. But how does the Python runtime end up doing a dlopen of the generated shared object and bind Python method calls on to corresponding functions in the shared library?

I also found a reference in Python's import system about shared libraries, but nothing beyond that. Does CPython treat .so files in the module path as Python modules?

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1 Answers

When doing import module Python will look for files with various extensions that could be python modules. That can be module.py, but also module.so (on Linux) or module.pyd (on Windows).

When loading a shared object, Python will load it like any dynamic library and then it will call the module's init method: It must be named PyInit_{module_name_here} and exported in the shared library.

You can read more about it here.

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